Members of the Montgomery County Council say they’re taking notice after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against Gov. Larry Hogan.

ROCKVILLE – Members of the Montgomery County Council say they’re taking notice after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against Gov. Larry Hogan.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, alleges that Hogan’s staff members deleted comments and blocked constituents from viewing his Facebook page.

“The highest purpose of the First Amendment is to protect the right of Americans to engage in political speech and to petition the government to address their concerns," said Deborah Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland in a statement.

The ACLU says Hogan’s social media staff deleted critical comments and blocked people from viewing the governor’s Facebook page and that this violates the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech.

“The immediate access people have has changed so rapidly over the past few years it is hard to keep up with it,” said County Executive Ike Leggeett. “We need to come up with a uniform policy that that public can understand.”

Leggett said there should be different standards for public and private social media pages, saying the County’s official social media accounts are publically funded pages and are held to the same standards as the rest of County government. Leggett said he keeps a personal Facebook page, but said he does not block people or delete comments even though he said his private account is mainly for personal use.

As Leggett does, Council member Tom Hucker (D-5), said he generally does not block people or delete comments. Hucker said he could not remember an instance when he blocked someone or deleted a comment, but said he is not opposed to it completely if it crosses a line...

...“I think he crossed the line by a long way this was just simply a commenter who just disagreed with his policies, they weren’t disparaging, they weren’t vitriolic…they were simply disagreements,” said Riemer of the comments deleted from Hogan’s Facebook page...

http://www.thesentinel.com/mont/news/state/item/5621-aclu-sues-hogan