A nickname for the United States of America, a line in its national anthem, and supposedly a statement about how free the country actually is.
Unfortunately, this freedom is more the product of the imagination of the majority then anything else. America, even though it has been, for most of its lifetime, the country with the most freedoms, they have often been restricted to certain groups, and the others have had to fight for them. Women, African-Americans, Catholics, and Jews are some of the groups that have managed to gain most of the freedoms which they were initially denied. Gays/lesbians/bisexuals/transgendered people have recently started fighting for their own freedoms.
So whether it's really the "land of the free" depends on if you're one of the free. And what you consider free.