President Barack Obama
making changes to fix the way the National Security Agency collects personal data on Americans is like the fox guarding the henhouse, Sen. Rand Paul said Wednesday.
"I don't think you can expect the fox to guard the henhouse. You can't expect the fox to oversee the henhouse," the Kentucky Republican told Fox News'
"America's Newsroom."
In light of revelations made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, revealing the extent of the collection of phone records by the NSA, President Barack Obama is expected to announce Friday new guidelines for the program, the New York Times reported.
Should the president announce he had fixed the problem, there would be a danger that it was an "illusion," Paul said. He called for Congress and the Supreme Court to "step up" and "rein in" the spying program.
"We can't allow the White House to be the one in charge of overseeing the White House," he said. "They say collecting all your records is not spying. It is spying."
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While in favor of collecting information on terrorists, Paul argued NSA spying on Americans did not further the goal of targeting terrorist activity.
"I don't think there is one terrorist that has been stopped by any of this data. It is extraordinarily expensive. And, it's extraordinarily intrusive into American lives," he said.
Halting spying by the federal government was important to "defend our liberties," Paul explained. He said the practice was "not constitutional," and maintained the government "shouldn't issue a single warrant and get the records of millions of Americans."