As American angst over their government's massive domestic spying program soars, the Victorian Privacy Commissioner has warned responsible handling of personal information will increasingly require deft application of the "best custodian principle".

Commissioner Paul Chadwick told the Institute of Public Administration Australia last month the best custodian of a large set of personal data is usually its original collector.

While under the principal various parts of government or the private sector may be authorized to refer to one or more of the large datasets for legitimate purposes, the custodian should always maintain a central role, he warned.

"In the case of the electoral roll, the best custodian is the Electoral Commissioner. For registers of births, deaths and marriages, it is the Registrar. For police databases, it is the police forces that compile them," Chadwick said.

In the US that would make the best custodian of telephone records the telephony companies. It is not yet clear how well those principles have been observed by the US government under its massive domestic surveillance program, yet American's privacy has been put under serious threat nevertheless. USA Today revealed last month that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by "best custodians" AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

USA Today claimed the program reached into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans - few of them suspected of any crime. While the NSA has apparently not been listening to or recording conversations, it has been using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, according to USA Today sources.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," one person in the know claimed, adding the agency plans "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders.

And while the "data custodians" haven't hand over customer names, addresses or other personal information to the government, USA Today notes the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

And political insiders Web site Capitol Hill Blue claims newly-sworn CIA head General Michael Hayden plans to build an even vaster domestic spying network that will "pry into the lives of most Americans around the clock".

Founder and Publisher Doug Thompson claims President George W Bush told Hayden to "take whatever steps necessary" to monitor Americans 24/7 by listening in on their phone calls, bugging their homes and offices, probing their private lives, snooping into their financial records and watching their travel habits.

He claims sources within the CIA, FBI, NSA and Pentagon have warned about Hayden's plans for an expanded, consolidated spy network aimed at Americans, not terrorists, and violating numerous laws that prohibit such activities against citizens of the United States.

According to one longtime CIA operative who may retire early rather than participate in what he sees as an illegal extension of the spy agency's activities: "What Hayden plans to do is not only illegal, it is immoral."

Thomson claims Hayden, who oversaw the NSA's monitoring of phone calls and emails of Americas, plans to consolidate much of the country's domestic spying into a new desk at the CIA, calling it a "domestic terrorism prevention" operation.

And this will almost certainly lead to problems. It's not just that the sheer size of the database will make identifying a presumably small population of terrorists immensely difficult - one blogger likened it to "trying to find a needle in a haystack by adding a million haystacks."

But as Chapman also pointed out last month, there are special data security risks associated with large unique datasets, including the dangers of copying large amounts of personal data onto CDs, or performing large transfers online (e.g. using XML) without robust security measures such as encryption.

He adds: "Experience suggests that where large datasets are put into the hands of those unfamiliar with them, data security problems can grow, even if inadvertently."

All this suggests the spying program is likely to be controversial for a very long time to come.

Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), working independently from his leadership, began circulating a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) during a late series of votes yesterday asking his leaders to revoke the Times's congressional press credentials.

The Standing Committee decides which organizations and reporters can be accredited, according to the rules of both the House and Senate press galleries. Members of that committee are elected by accredited members of those galleries.

"Under no circumstances would we revoke anyone's credentials simply because a government official is unhappy with what that correspondent's newspaper has written," said Susan Milligan, a reporter for the Boston Globe, which is owned by the Times, who also serves the standing chairwoman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents. "The rules say nothing about the stories a newspaper chooses to pursue, or the reaction those stories provoke. The Times clearly meets our standards for credentials."

The Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal all reported the existence of the program on their websites last Thursday.

President Bush criticized the reports during a press event Monday, calling the disclosure "disgraceful" and a "great harm" to national security. Vice President Dick Cheney, who voiced support for the program over the weekend, followed Bush's criticism with harsh words of his own.

In an open letter responding to these criticisms, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller wrote that a free press was the key check on government's abuse of power.

Questioned at a news conference afterward, Marty singled out Bosnia, whose government admitted to the inquiry that it had handed six suspects of Algerian origin into US hands in January 2002.

He also pointed to Italian complicity in the February 2003 abduction of the former imam of a Milan mosque, Osama Mustafa Hassan - also known as Abu Omar - who was flown to Egypt where he alleged he was tortured.

In that case, Italian prosecutors hope to put 22 alleged CIA operatives on trial in absentia before the end of the year.

The United States has criticised Marty's report - published on June 7 but presented Tuesday to the Council of Europe - as listing unproven allegations, insisting it has done nothing wrong and that renditions are perfectly legal.

The report said 14 European states had colluded in or tolerated the secret transfer of terrorist suspects by the United States.

It named Bosnia-Hercegovina, Britain, Italy, Macedonia, Germany, Sweden and Turkey as "responsible, at varying degrees ... for violations of the rights of specific persons."

Seven other countries - Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain - were also guilty of collusion, it added.

The resolution said the cooperation had "spawned a system that is utterly incompatible with the fundamental principles of the Council of Europe."

"We must have a judicial world order with our friends and allies the United States, but it must be based on values led, in particular, by the Council of Europe," Marty said.

Franco Frattini, vice president of the European Commission, admitted there was little that could be done on a European basis about individual countries' secret services.

Nevertherless, "we must clarify in stricter detail what should be allowed or not," he added.

Reacting to the report, human rights groups urged nations involved to stop helping with renditions and to press the United States to halt the practice.

"European governments should be ashamed of their participation in illegal detentions and they must end their involvement at once," said Joanne Mariner, of Human Rights Watch.

In a statement, the groups, which included Amnesty International, demanded independent public inquiries to probe government involvement in renditions and secret transfers.

They listed 12 recommendations, including beefed-up legislation protecting human rights; changing aviation policy so that aircraft cannot carry prisoners through a state without authorisation; and a pledge not to return suspects to countries where they may face torture even if there are diplomatic assurances they would not be mistreated.

The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, which is separate from the European Union, was set up after World War II to promote democracy and human rights. It has 46 member states.

"The good news is that we know how to reduce the risks and the solutions are within reach," Waldman said.

The Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security, an initiative of the Brennan Center, conducted the study, which it called the most comprehensive study of electronic voting machines to date.

Larry Norden, chairman of the task force of government and private scientists, voting machine experts and security officials said about 80 percent of voters will vote on one of these electronic systems in November mid-term elections.

Norden said he hopes the study will prompt states and Congress to begin mandating that security measures recommended by the task force be part of the protocol for every county in the United States.

Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who has introduced legislation to upgrade security for electronic voting machines, arranged to attend a news conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday where the report was to be released.

Holt's bill has 192 cosponsors, most of them fellow Democrats, an aide said. He introduced the bill last year and it remained unclear whether Congress would enact it into law.

The measure would require all voting machines to produce a paper record voters could inspect to check the accuracy of their votes and election officials could use to verify votes in the event of a computer malfunction or other irregularity.

"Anything of value should be auditable," said Holt.

"Votes are valuable, and each voter should have the knowledge and the confidence that his or her vote was recorded and counted as intended."

The city's call to test residents aged 14-84 raised some eyebrows, especially due to the cost.

"Fourteen is the age many become sexually active," Howell said. "HIV numbers are going up 55 and up, so we're not going to make any arbitrary cutoff as to people's sexual activity."

The campaign is meant to encourage testing and to include HIV screening as part of standard medical checkups.

"We want to make it as routine as blood pressure and diabetes tests," she said.

Howell said there was no single reason the US capital has such a high HIV rate.

"It is a metropolitan city; education has not reached a lot of people about safe sex; poverty. We haven't reached people with enough information," she said, adding that the US Congress, which has direct control over the city, has banned use of local funds for needle exchange programs among drug addicts.

Chip Lewis, a spokesman for the privately funded Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, estimated that one million people in the United States are HIV positive.

"And one third don't know they are HIV positive," Lewis said.

"Once someone comes in and tests positive, their doctor's medical treatment can help them live many years," he said.

Testing HIV positive "is not the death sentence it used to be." HIV is the virus which can lead to AIDS.

Under questioning, Nicholson acknowledged that much more money may be needed to revamp information security at the VA and other agencies. He also left the door open to providing veterans more than one year of free credit monitoring following the May 3 burglary at a VA data analyst's home.

"Unfortunately, a very bad thing happened," Nicholson told a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees VA spending.

"I think we can turn VA into the model for information security," he added. "I will not try to mislead you and delude. This will not be easy and it will not be overnight."

Of the $160.5 million requested for monitoring, Nicholson said, about $29 million will be taken from VA funds budgeted in 2006 to cover personnel costs at the Veterans Benefit Administration. That money would not have been used this year due to hiring plans that already had been pushed back to 2007, he added. The other $131.5 million would be reallocated from other areas of the White House budget.

"It will take some belt tightening. It will not come out of veterans' benefits," Nicholson said.

No reports of identity theft have been reported in connection with the May 3 theft of a computer from the data analyst's home in suburban Maryland. The laptop contained names, birth dates and Social Security numbers for up to 26.5 million people.

Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $160 million in emergency funds to pay for credit monitoring. It is one of many expected payments as the government struggles with fallout from data thefts and other breaches now crossing at least six agencies.

Earlier in the hearing, the House panel was urged to spend whatever necessary to avoid undue hardships for data theft victims.

David McIntyre, president and CEO of TriWest Healthcare Alliance, which administers the Pentagon's health care program in 21 Western states, proposed creating a central government "nerve center" to assist agencies after any such security breach.

"Unfortunately, as we have all come to realize, the question is not whether another incident of information theft will occur but when," McIntyre said. "Events such as these are happening with increased regularity - and, surely, spending a few million to prepare is preferable to spending hundreds of millions to react."

Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., chairman of the House subcommittee, chastised the VA for waiting three weeks to notify veterans about the theft. "This represents a significant lapse of time that could have been vital to protect identity theft," Walsh said.

In his testimony, Nicholson called the burglary a "wake-up call" that should not have come at the expense of veterans, some of whom have challenged the free monitoring in court as potentially inadequate. He said about half of the affected veterans were expected to take the government's offer.

Separately, the VA asked a federal judge to revise his order barring the VA from publicizing its free credit monitoring offer. The VA said it wished to continue providing information to veterans through its Web site and call center and had no intention of asking veterans to relinquish their rights to a potentially larger payout in court.

U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman in Kentucky scheduled a hearing for Friday to determine whether the VA should revise its deal.

The class-action lawsuits, which are pending in Covington, Ky., and Washington, seek free monitoring and other credit protection for an indefinite period as well as $1,000 in damages for each person - or up to $26.5 billion total.

Stacy Hinners, an attorney representing veterans, said veterans did not wish to shut down the call center and Web site but simply wanted the VA to be clear what rights veterans would have if they accepted the free offer.

Veterans groups and lawmakers from both parties have criticized the VA for the theft and noted years of warnings by auditors that information security was lax. The data analyst - who was in the process of being dismissed - had taken the information home on a personal laptop for three years.