The President doth protest too much, methinks.

Regarding President Bush's statement: "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."

The Bush Administration seems to be willfully ignoring the fact that the fundamental problem with the phone call database is not whether or not the information is being used, but that the NSA should not have access to the information in the first place. This is yet another example of the Bush Administration framing its debates in terms that put its opposition on the defensive.

This Administration has a history of engaging in faulty logic, like the following: The main aim of our initiatives is to combat terrorism. Therefore, if you oppose our initiatives, you are a terrorist. As a teacher, my favorite example of this was in 2004 when Education Secretary Rod Paige called members of the National Educator's Association terrorists for opposing No Child Left Behind. Knowing this, how can we trust the administration to identify the "known bad guys"?

Listening in on my calls, General Hayden? Well, if you listen in my classroom today you'll hear a lesson on civil liberties. Today, it's a current events lesson; tomorrow, I may have to reclassify it as history.