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The US government is taking Sprint to court for allegedly inflating the cost of performing wiretaps by millions of dollars. In a complaint filed on Monday, the government said Sprint had asked law enforcement agencies for an extra $21 million in reimbursement for its surveillance costs over a period of several years, raising its total bill by around 58 percent. As a penalty for adding “hidden costs” in requests between 2007 and 2010, the Obama administration wants Sprint to pay damages and separate penalties of between $5,500 and $11,000 for each of 29,000 expense claims, a number that could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars. But the government alleges that Sprint also included the cost of upgrading its systems to make this surveillance feasible.