"Clearly, this is another case where the goverment
is trying to play catchup with hi-tech issues."
bemoans one insider.

Picture an lonely stretch of Nevada desert highway. It's midnight, and you're on the way back from a big hi-tech convention and a side trip to visit some 'net acquaintences. You're tired, bored, and $4 million dollars richer. You just want to go home. Suddenly, there's a flash of red and blue in the rear view mirror of your Lexus SUV. Police! Local ones, at that, who don't "cotton t' none o' ya'll outta' towners." You pull out your drivers license and try to relax.

3 hours later, after spending nearly two full hours in a prison populated with 3 drunks and an arson suspect, you're let go, ruffled, and definitly worse for wear. What happened? Some say what happened to T. Michael Davies, 34, and CEO of youdotoeh.com is just another case where Non-Silicon Valley types just don't get it.

T. Michael Davies, a Silicon
Valley CEO type who
some feel is a victim of
gov't 'net ignorance.

It all began innocently enough: Mr. Davies exchanged some e-mail with a couple of kids that he met on a children's themed Internet chat room. "This wasn't an adult chat room at all-- it was strictly G-Rated, aimed at kids to be one and interacting while watching a local kid's show." said Jacob Jakoby, an attourney representing the Silicon Valley executive. "After a few e-mails where exhanged, all done on Mr Davies's personal laptop, through a T3 line leased by Michael Davies, the kids were convinced to meet T. Michael at a local bowling alley."

From that point on, from the time the children were stuffed into the back of his SUV's trunk and driven 400 miles, is a very grey, hard to define area." Agreed one local Internet expert. "The police were tipped off that T. Michael was "planning something suspicious." from the children's parents, who looked back through the kid's e-mail after they suspected they were up to something. That, in my opinion, is a clear violation of privacy. The local Johnny Law, however, had no problem with over-reacting on the parent's tips and staking out the bowling alley Mr. Davies was to meet the children. When Mr. Davies didn't show, and the children ended up missing, a huge, unneccesary and character-damaging manhunt was called."

It gets worse. After Mr Davies was apprehended just 90 miles east of the California border, he was cuffed, "knocked about", and hauled to jail. His laptop, which contained "illegal, pornographic images" was confinscated.

"To this day, I have no idea how those disturbing, but possibly not illegal, at least not in Calfornia, images got there." Mr. Davies said in a rare statement made just days after the non-incident.

"The problem is where to define exactly where one's private's rights extend to. Certainly, the children's e-mail should not of been viewed by the parents, and Mr Davies's laptop should not of been confinscated and searched by people who didn't even know how to open the latch at first, much less use an early release of Windows 2000."

The Nevada State Patrol is charging Mr. Davies with kidnapping, child endangerment, and several other counts of other sorts of crime. Mr. Davies is countersuing for damages to his character, his proprety, and his company, youdotoeh.com's reputation.

"We're billing his time lost in jail at $40,000 an hour. He's worth no less than that." noted his lawyer. "It's too bad being ignorant of hi-tech issues isn't a crime-- that whole stupid law enforcement agency would be under arrest."