Independence Day: Are we truly free?

Independence Day evokes ideas and feelings of freedom, liberty, peace and happiness. And, many nations celebrate their own independence day. As we celebrate Independence Day in the US today, we thought this topic would be very appropriate for our TWNow discussion.
When we look around the many nations around the globe, we see incredible advances in technology and understanding, of ideas and concepts. We see wondrous accomplishments that were unimaginable even a few decades ago. Yet, now well in the 21st century, is anyone truly free anymore? Even in democracies that have been seen as bastions of freedom in decades and centuries past?
Headlines are beginning to carry more warnings about the erosion of western freedom, like this one in MacClean’s Magazine entitled “The Slow Death of American Freedom.”