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Former Rep. Ron Paul isn’t buying that NSA surveillance of private American  citizens is necessary or has prevented as many terrorism plots as officials  claim it has, as was unveiled by hearings today.

“I don’t really believe that because I think they fudged the figures. Of  those 50 plots that they stopped, I think 40 were minor plots overseas, for all  we know. So they stretched the point. And even these hearings today were a bit  of a sham…because they had already decided what the results would be,” Paul said  on Fox News on Tuesday. “They have to try to justify their existence of  destroying the freedom of and the privacy of the American citizens, otherwise  they’re out of work.”

The Texas Republican was referencing the House Intelligence  Committee hearing Tuesday where National Security Agency Director Keith  Alexander said communication surveillance programs have thwarted more than 50 “potential terrorist events”. Paul also wasn’t amused by the NSA trying to pass  the intrusions off as an attempt to save Americans and the American way of  life.

“It’s sort of like the old story about you have to burn the village to save  the village. They want to burn the Constitution to save the Constitution,” he  said. “And even today, [James] Cole, the Deputy Attorney General says, the  Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to this. Where did he get this brilliance to know  when it applies and when it doesn’t?”

“If we can go to war and do all these other things and throw the constitution  out the window so casually, you better be sure if you give them an inch, they’re  going to take a mile and paint themselves as heroes,” Paul added. “The one thing  they don’t do is ever ask the motivation for people wanting to kill us. If we  don’t ask that question we can’t stop these problems by just taking more liberties away from the American people. We’re going in the opposite way. We’ve taken away the constitution, we’re supposed to be fighting to save the constitution. It’s completely turned on its head.”