was criminal.
Excerpt from 'TO: A Journal of Poetry, Prose + the Visual Arts', Summer
1992:
* Hounded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a bizarre witch-hunt
* at an expense to the taxpayers of over a million dollars, Sturges had
* survived an attempt to destroy his life and his work and was now
* countersuing the agency.
*
* Recapitulated briefly, Sturges, who's based in San Francisco, has for
* years been photographing young people whose families practice ****ity.
*
* He's done so with his subjects' permission, as well as that of their
* parents, who often appear in the photographs along with their offspring.
* Rejecting the use of standard model releases, with their blanket
* permissions, the photographer chooses instead to request approval
* from his subjects for each and every exhibition and publication
* of each and every image --- an exemplary scrupulousness.
*
* Then, in 1990, alerted to the "questionable" content of some of his
* images by a local processing lab, the FBI arrested Joe Semien, Sturge's
* assistant, invaded the photographer's San Francisco studio without a
* warrant, and seized all his prints, negatives, records, and equipment;
* thereafter, without arresting Sturges, or even charging him with
* anything, they refused to return his property and did everything
* possible to destroy him personally and professionally by branding
* him a child ****ographer
On September 15, 1991, The New York Times re****ted that the Feds took the
case to a grand jury after 17 months, and they immediately threw it out.
An
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