Research supervisor gives me no freedom-- controls all aspects of my research. Feel like a research secretary. Is this normal in academia?
I'm not a doctoral student, I'm a research associate at a research lab affiliated with a university in the US


So if I'm reading that right, you are not a student. You have completed your BS degree and you are an employee (if that is not correct, please clarify the question). The PI in the lab is not your advisor, he is your boss. So your boss is treating you like an employee, and not like a student. You should not be surprised by this.  You are an employee and a fairly junior one at that. If there is any mundane task to be done, it's going to come to you.  You will find that the experience of being a graduate student is very different than your current position. You will have considerably more ownership / freedom on the direction of your research (not total control, but much more), and you will definitely get authorship credit for your work.  

Having said that, there is also considerable variation from lab to lab and from professor to professor in their style of working. Some professors will try to give even undergraduates a meaningful research experience, but others might treat even experienced doctoral students in the manner you have described.  You may have just ended up in a bad lab. When you are applying to graduate school, when you go to visit the campus, the most important question to ask the professors is: "Who are your graduate students and where can I find them?"  Then go ask those graduate students what it is like to work in that lab with that professor.  If you don't like their answers, then you know not to work in that lab.