The internet and other technologies have been followed directly by new, repressive laws that make what was legal before illegal, and criminalized what used to be mere misdemeanors.

It has also increased surveillance on all citizens to a point former East European totalitarian regimes could only dream of.

They only freedom we've gained it the freedom to globally bitch about it. Any action we may actually take with the help of the internet is rapidly being criminalized. Those "massive vistas of freedom" are just a matter of inertia.

This "bunker siege mentality" is not an illusion when every week new measures and laws are introduced to take away freedoms we used to have 25 years ago.

While the internet has liberated many aspects of humanity (communications, publishing, artistic and scientific collaboration, etc.) there has been diminishment of meatspace freedoms, in some cases as a direct reaction by the former captors.

I'm guessing you're not black, are you? Were your Japanese parents placed in an internment camp during WWII? Were you a communist in the McCarthy era?

It's not that we have less freedom now, it's that freedom is different. Now, we torture people and hold them indefinitely in Guantanamo. We spy on our citizens. We still haven't overcome racism or sexism. But there are definitely areas where we've improved greatly.

Perhaps "considerably less free" was meant to refer to the enormous increase in this country's prison population over the past few decades. That increase was driven by a ballooning legal code, vast expanses in law enforcement power, and a general disregard for the most important civil rights in this country. While most non-prisoners walk about freely, as though they are entirely innocent, it is nearly impossible for any US citizen to claim that they have not committed any felony offenses.

Prison population is driven almost entirely by a few drug prohibitions and general poverty issues, not a ballooning legal code.

They mean 'negative liberty,' you mean 'positive liberty.'