The First Amendment to the United States Constitution limits the actions of the government and guarantees five rights to citizens: Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to congregate, and right to redress grievances to the government.
While the amendment uses the expression "shall make no law", federal and other courts have numerous times interpreted the spirit of the amendment to include all actions by government officials, not just the passing of laws by congress. In other words, government officials cannot suppress or punish people for the exercise of these rights by using the excuse "this is not a law we are passing, therefore it's not against the Constitution." And, indeed, government officials, such as police officers, have been reprimanded, sued and even punished for violations of the First Amendment because of their actions (even though they, rather obviously, are not trying to pass any kind of law.)
However, there's one big flaw in the enforcement of the First Amendment.
You see, very low-level government officials, such as police officers, security guards working for governmental buildings, postal office workers and so on, seem to be bound by the First Amendment and will sometimes face consequences for violating people's rights.
However, it seems to me that the higher up you go in governmental positions, the less likely it is for government officials to get any kind of consequences for violations of people's rights.
The highest governmental position in the United States government, in other words, the United States Congress, appears to be particularly immune. This even though the amendment quite explicitly mentions "congress" in particular.
There have been several quite egregious examples of members of the Congress, even members of the Senate (the upper chamber of Congress, ie. the people with the most amount of power in the country), advocating for direct violations of the First Amendment, most particularly the restriction of people's free speech and freedom of the press. And not like in some kind of extremely vague up-to-interpretation manner, if we twist their words a bit and read between the lines. No, very explicit and direct calls, by members of Congress, even members of the Senate, for the suppression of people's free speech, and suppression of the freedom of the press of particular news agencies and reporters.
Yet they experience absolutely no consequences for these direct violations of the First Amendment. Nothing. To my knowledge there have not been even any investigations on whether something should be done. No complaints to the Supreme Court, or any other branch of the judicial branch (which is supposed to watch over the other branches, especially in matters of the Constitution), nothing.
It seems to me that members of the United States Congress can get away with egregious violations of the First Amendment and experience zero consequences, for reasons unknown to me. This even though the First Amendment is quite explicitly and directly targeted at them in particular, restricting their actions.
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