Having refused to comply with a government "Internet tap" that would track all online activities of one of its users, XS4ALL is taking its belief in online privacy meddling straight to the Dutch court system.
"We don't care about the nature of the crime, we're just going to pay attention to our own company's policies.... We have responsibility for our users," says Maurice Wessling, spokesman for the Internet service provider that's infamous for it's semi-anarchistic bent and the smattering of hacker and drug info Web sites it hosts. "It's in our history that we feel very responsible to issues like these."
On 31 October, XS4ALL received a mandate from the Dutch Ministry of Justice directing it to monitor all the IP traffic - Usenet, IRC, email, Web - of one of its subscribers under government investigation. Wessling said XS4ALL is refusing on the basis that the service should not be required to compromise the privacy of its customers and therefore compromise the integrity of its own business - especially considering that a good number of subscribers are dabbling in controversial topics.
Founded by hackers, XS4ALL is one of the Netherland's oldest Internet service providers and boasts more than 28,000 subscribers. Its embrace of radicalism has led to a series of tangles with authority. In March, the police discovered that one XS4ALL site was hawking marijuana and demanded it be shut down. Shortly thereafter, XS4ALL tussled with the German government over the hosting a site for Radikal, a leftist magazine.
While XS4ALL has complied with previous police requests to help gather information about people under investigation, the service's proprietors believe the government has overreached its authority. Although acknowledging a Dutch law that allows government wiretapping, XS4ALL insists that the statute doesn't apply to the Net. And even if it did, it argues that it should not be required to act as an investigative agency. But since the ISP is legally obliged to comply to the Ministry of Justice's demands, it says it is prepared to go to court to resolve the issue.
"In Dutch law there's not enough legal basis to ask for such a far-reaching action," Wessling said. "We're afraid that if we cooperate now there'd be a precedent for the future. Our refusal is a crime - our only objective now is to get it into the courts and let a judge dictate if our refusal is legal or not."
The Dutch Ministry of Justice could not be reached immediately for comment.
