ISP sues Dutch gov for snooping costs

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/08/isp_sues_police/print.html>

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 Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/08/isp_sues_police/

ISP sues Dutch gov for snooping costs
By John Oates (john.oates at theregister.co.uk)
Published Tuesday 8th March 2005 09:36 GMT

An Internet Service Provider is suing the Dutch government to recover the
costs of making its network accessible to law enforcement.

Under Dutch law ISPs are entitled to claim for the administrative cost of
each individual wiretap, but not for the cost of equipment which makes such
snooping possible.

XS4ALL is claiming ¤500,000 - the amount it says it has spent since 2001 to
ensure its network is accessible to police.

Apart from getting back the money invested in its network XS4ALL wants to
set a precedent to establish who pays for law enforcement - government or
industry. It warns that the European Council of Justice and Home Affairs is
debating measures to make telecom providers store all traffice data for
between one and three years. Again the expense of providing such storage
will be met by industry

According to XS4all, providers in other European countries including
Austria, Italy, Finland, France and the UK are already fully reimbursed for
the expense of installing wiretaps.

More details available on the ISP's website here.
(http://www.xs4all.nl/nieuws/bericht.php?id=619&taal=en&msect=nieuws&year=2005)®

-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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