10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free

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.

So, Jonathan Turley–a real constitutional lawyer and not a guy who plays one for campaigning purposes–surveys the rot to America’s basic liberties and doesn’t like what he sees.  While America is not yet Chinese-style civil rights black hole, Washington has gotten nothing on Putin’s Russia when it comes to faux rights. 

A good example:

Extraordinary renditions

The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.
-Jonathan Turley

And nine more Kafka-esque reasons why America is no longer “land of the free” (I think it lost “home of the brave” when it embraced drone warfare).  Go to the Washington Post and read his op-ed for the rest of the sorry litany of sordid authoritarianism.