10 Reasons the US is No Longer the Land of the Free

In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, [the US] has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

… Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit. 

… Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers [of the constitution] feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely. — read more @Common Dreams