The United States is getting worse. People are paranoid and in their stupidity they slowly, one by one hand their rights over to the government. The general support for the Patriot Act is one blatent example of this. However, people are slowly getting less paranoid so at least they won't hand everything over "for freedom" (do you see the irony here?).
However, the United States is definitely not the worst in the world. In Iran, women are obligated to wear the Hijab (thus restricting freedom of expression through clothing). In other countries, you can't even talk about the dictator in a bad light in front of others unless you want to get arrested. In Thailand, you get arrested for "speaking badly about the King". I even hear that the UK has a lot of surveillance.
So yes, the United States is a bad country to live in right now - and its our fault as American people that it's like this. However, it certainly is not the worst country in the world and it is it not about to turn into Oceania of 1984...at least not any time soon.