The First Amendment is part of an American document describing American precepts of law for the American government. Specifically, it prevents the American legislative body known as Congress (who represents, exclusively, the American electorate) from passing laws abridging the freedom of speech. It's implied that the First Amendment only applies to Americans, for the same reason that, say, the laws of the EU or Russia don't apply to Americans. Governments only have sovereign authority over their citizens.
Mind you, the First Amendment and freedom of speech are related, but not the same, and one can easily argue that freedom of speech is universal, but not the American Constitution.
That's not the interpretation the courts have taken. Essentially you can't take the constitution as a whole and say it applies to Americans or not. There are rights specifically conveyed to citizens (like voting). Those are clearly American only. Then in contrast to that there are rights conveyed to people generally, and rights formed as blanket restrictions on government. Those are interpreted as equally applying to non Americans.
> Those are interpreted as equally applying to non Americans.
But, oddly, as not applying fully to acts of the American government taken outside of the borders of the United States, which is why Gitmo is used for sketchy War on Terror detentions, and not any place on sovereign US territory rather than territory notionally leased by the US from a foreign sovereign.
I think that's in the realm of grey legal theory that hasn't been tested in court. But yes, that's a great point, and I coincidentally just said something similar in another comment.
> I think that's in the realm of grey legal theory that hasn't been tested in court.
Johnson v Eisentrager (1950) is the landmark case, but its been fleshed out subsequently (and most of those decisions have narrowed the apparent gap in the Constitution it opened up), largely in response to the decision to use Gitmo as a get out of law free card. But the existence of that decision is why Gitmo got used.
And given the split on those decisions limiting Eisentrager, I wouldn't want to see what the current court would do with cases in that area...
> It's implied that the First Amendment only applies to Americans, for the same reason that, say, the laws of the EU or Russia don't apply to Americans.
The laws of the EU or Russia certainly do apply to Americans in EU or Russia. In fact they apply to anyone within the respective jurisdictions.
That makes no sense whatsoever to me. Where in the US Constitution is this restriction on the First Amendment?