art --

you're right that the free speech clause of the First Amendment "is a restriction on Congress, not an unrestricted right of individuals." but, not to put too fine a point on it, the guarantees of the First Amendment have been pretty uniformly and explicitly applied as restrictions on the individual states and even on municipal governments as a matter of Due Process under the Fourteenth Amendment by the Supreme Court since at least 1925 (Gitlow v. New York). the same thing is true of the rest of the First Amendment and most of the other guarantees in the Bill of Rights. state constitutional guarantees that cover the same subjects are typically viewed as additional or supplemental protections.

just to clarify (and pardon the pedantry).

michael