President Bush said Thursday the government is “not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans” with a reported program to create a massive database of U.S. phone calls. “The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities,” Bush said in a statement he read to reporters at the White House. “Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates.” Bush’s comments followed a USA Today report Thursday that telecommunications giants AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon have provided the National Security Agency with billions of records of domestic phone calls beginning shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001.