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

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free by Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University.

• Assassination of U.S. citizens (in company with Nigeria, Iran and Syria)
  
• Indefinite Detention (in company with China and Cambodia)
  
• Arbitrary Justice (in company with China and Egypt)
  
• Warrantless Searches (in company with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan)
  
• Secret Evidence
  
• War Crimes (in company with China, Syria, Serbia and Pinochet's Chile)
  
• Secret Court (in company with Pakistan)
  
• Immunity from Judicial Review (in company with China)
  
• Continual Monitoring of Citizens (in company with Saudi Arabia and Cuba)
  
• Extraordinary Renditions
  

Somehow, I don't think this is the America that the Founding Fathers fought a revolution to create. In fact, it reads much more like the list of reasons that those same Founding Fathers gave as to why they considered King George III a tyrant in the Declaration of Independence.
Or, as professor Turley puts it ...

The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
Benjamin Franklin was more direct. In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His response was a bit chilling: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”
Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.

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