"We're not moving toward Hitler-type fascism," the Texas congressman said Sunday on PBS' "Bill Moyers Journal," referring to the German leader from the 1930s and '40s, "but we're moving toward a softer fascism. Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military-industrial complex, you have the medical-industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. That's where the control is. I call that a soft form of fascism, something that is very dangerous."

Paul, who finished fifth in the Iowa caucuses last week with 10 percent, but who is finding rising popularity on Internet sites such as YouTube.com, said civil liberties have been "undermined" steadily since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

"All in the name of safety and security, we're supposed to give up our rights of our privacy. We are allowed, now, to accept the idea of secret prisons and secret renditions and the loss of habeas corpus," Paul said. "This is very, very dangerous and I don't want to get to the point where it's hard to reverse."