AMHERST - Public officials who maintain blogs are exercising free speech rights and should not be silenced because of concerns about Open Meeting Law violations, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts wrote in a letter to the Northwestern district attorney's office last week.

The issue was raised publicly in a May 18 letter from the five Amherst-area school committee chairmen, who asked the district attorney's office for a legal opinion on the potential for Open Meeting Law violations on blogs maintained by public officials such as school committee members.

In a stringent defense of officials who use the online forums, William Newman, director of the ACLU's western Massachusetts office, and his law partner Thomas Lesser took issue with many of the concerns outlined in the chairmen's dispatch, arguing that the questions they posed could infringe on public officials' First Amendment rights.

--Read the letter from the ACLU of Massachusetts

"Any attempt by the government to regulate the protected speech of a public official is highly suspect," Newman said in a phone interview Monday.

In the June 3 letter, Newman and Lesser argued that the Supreme Court has consistently found Internet communication on forums such as blogs to be protected speech. Further, they argued that the Open Meeting Law was intended to prevent secret meetings among public officials, not to prohibit communication between them and their constituents.

"We believe that government should be conducted in the sunshine, and we support the state Open Meeting Law," they wrote. "We also believe that a paradigm for open government should not be construed so as to infringe upon fundamental right to freedom of expression."

Cynthia Pepyne, assistant district attorney, said the matter is under consideration. She expects the district attorney's office to release an advisory opinion in the coming weeks. The attorney general's office will take over oversight of the Open Meeting Law on July 1.

The original letter was signed by the five Amherst area school committee chairs: Amherst's Irv Rhodes, Leverett's Kip Fonsh, Pelham's Tracy Farnham, Shutesbury's Michael DeCharia and region boss Farshid Hajir.

DeCharia, the letter's primary author, said school committee members are merely looking for guidance about rules relating to blogs.

"I personally support many online tools and it would be nice to know what the rules are," DeCharia said. "There are a lot of public officials hanging back and not commenting because they are unsure of the legality. If the rules were clear, we would be able to have a legal, robust conversation."

Yet some disagreed with that assessment, arguing that the officials' letter was intended to silence blogs such as Catherine Sanderson's My School Committee Blog and Rick Hood's Amherst School Talk. Both were cited in the letter to the district attorney.

Sanderson's blog in particular has become increasingly influential - according to the site meter on her blog, she has an average of 261 visitors per day - and her frequent posts have won the Amherst College professor a host of supporters and detractors alike.

"They are secretly hoping that what Catherine does is illegal," said Larry Kelley, who writes an Amherst watchdog blog, Only in the Republic of Amherst. Kelley, a member of the Amherst Redevelopment Authority, said any attempt to regulate blogs like Sanderson's would prohibit blogs like his own.

"Whatever befalls her, befalls me as well," he said.

Sanderson expressed similar concerns, and questioned why the school officials' letter had been sent to the newspaper.

"My only assumption is that their goal was to bring public attention to what they felt was an illegal activity by an elected official," she said.

DeCharia disagreed. "This is bigger than one blogger, it is bigger than one committee and it is bigger than one town. This is a challenge for the commonwealth to get right," he said.