The Eighth Annual Muzzle Awards (continued)

Michael Chitwood

Fearing biker violence, chief cancels concert

One look at country musician David Allan Coe’s Web site (www.officialdavidallancoe.com) would be enough to give any law-enforcement official reason to pause. With his Confederate-flag-style guitar, prison mug shots, and outlaw-biker image, Coe comes across as someone whose concerts might present a public-safety challenge, to say the least. And as his biography on RollingStone.com observes, "releasing racist records on underground indie labels didn’t do much to further his reputation."

But Portland police chief Michael Chitwood overreacted last April when he canceled a Coe concert that had been scheduled for June 16 at the Portland Expo, a publicly owned, taxpayer-supported venue. Chitwood claimed that a shooting at a city tattoo parlor may have been related to long-simmering warfare between rival motorcycle gangs — and that the Coe concert might lead to a bloody rampage. "We’re not going to let them come in and shoot up our city," Chitwood said. "It endangers an entire community."

Chitwood kept piling on the fear, telling the media that the producer of the concert was linked to the Outlaws, a motorcycle gang at odds with the Hell’s Angels. Coe, it seems, had joined the Outlaws after his release from prison, in 1967 — although it appears that, at 65, his Outlaw days are well behind him.

The Coe concert was to coincide with an annual motorcycle rally in Laconia, New Hampshire, that brings several hundred thousand bikers into Northern New England. On June 12, the Portland Press Herald published a front-page story beneath the headline POLICE IN MAINE HOPE FOR BEST, PREPARE FOR WORST, conjuring images of a biker apocalypse. After it was over, though, the paper published a follow-up story demonstrating just how badly Chief Chitwood had miscalculated: OUTLAWS BIKER GANG ‘SO POLITE IT WAS SCARY.’

It’s hard to see how this all would have degenerated into violence if Chitwood had decided to protect David Allan Coe’s right of free expression rather than give in to his fears.

Steve Jobs

Apple chairman seeks to silence Harvard student

Is there a more admired business leader in America than Apple Computer co-founder and chairman Steve Jobs? Though tech junkies have all heard about what a domineering tyrant Jobs can be, he has nevertheless been wildly successful in creating an image for Apple as a caring alternative to the monolithic force represented by Microsoft and Bill Gates.

Late last year, though, the public got a close-up look at Jobs’s darker side when Apple sued a then-19-year-old Harvard freshman named Nicholas Ciarelli for committing journalism. Ciarelli, the owner and operator of a Web site called ThinkSecret.com, digs up inside information on what Apple is up to and reports it ahead of the company’s official announcements. Apple sued Think Secret and two other Web sites on charges that they violated California’s trade-secret law. "Apple’s DNA is innovation, and the protection of our trade secrets is crucial to our success," the company said in a press release.

What Ciarelli reported — that the company was about to unveil two new products, the Mac Mini and the iPod Shuffle — was hardly earth-shattering. Jobs was clearly looking to send a message. But though Apple employees may very well have broken California law by leaking to Ciarelli, Ciarelli’s activities are — or should be — recognized as constitutionally protected free speech. Jobs is abusing the legal system — not to mention the First Amendment — with his attempt at corporate-funded censorship. Think different, indeed.

"Apple’s lawsuit is an affront to the First Amendment, and an attempt to use Apple’s economic power to intimidate small journalists," Think Secret says in its most recent court filings. "If a publication such as the New York Times had published such information, it would be called good journalism; Apple never would have considered a lawsuit."

More recently, Jobs ordered a not-sufficiently-flattering biography of him removed from Apple’s retail stores, an action that was obviously within his rights. If he wants to be a control freak, that’s his business. But his abuse of free speech is everyone’s business.

Elaine Almagno

Principal suspends student for criticizing her on Web

One afternoon in March, Eliazar Velasquez, a sophomore at Central High School in Providence, focused his digital camera and started snapping. He got exactly what he wanted: the principal, Elaine Almagno, was smoking in the parking lot on school grounds, a violation of state law. He uploaded the photos to his Web site, Central Scoop (centralscoop.tripod.com), writing, "We feel that Ms. Almagno is not suited to be principal of Central High School. Don’t take my word for it. I have pictures!" He also passed out fliers at Central High urging his classmates to check out Central Scoop.

Almagno’s response was sadly predictable. She suspended Velasquez. "When something like this happens, it’s an extreme disruption of teaching and learning," she explained. Well, it certainly was an extreme disruption for her.

Student journalists, unfortunately, do not enjoy the same First Amendment protections that apply to the media in general. The Supreme Court has ruled that principals may censor student publications, and battles between administrators and school newspapers are common. The Internet, though, raises new issues for the would-be censors in the front office. Velasquez’s Central Scoop is his own site, entirely unconnected to the school. As such, Almagno would seemingly have no more right to punish Velasquez than she would a reporter at the Providence Journal.

Cooler heads quickly prevailed. After two days, Velasquez was allowed to return to school without acquiescing to Almagno’s initial demand that he take down Central Scoop. Superintendent of schools Melody Johnson said that Almagno "should not have been smoking on school grounds, as this is a violation of law and school district policy and does not set a good example for students."

But it’s far from clear that Almagno has developed new respect for the First Amendment: according to Central Scoop, a friend of Velasquez was recently handed a five-minute detention for refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. Depending on the outcome, Almagno may be in line for a 2006 Muzzle next Fourth of July.

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com