Police raided a data scientist who worked for the Florida Department of Health on Monday. “This is what happens when scientists do their job fairly,” says Rebekah Jones.
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“They have fired guns at me and my children,” said data scientist Rebekah Jones on Twitter, where she shared footage of the raid. The images show armed officers calling for people on the first floor to go outside. “Don’t aim that gun at my kids,” she shouts. “He just pointed his gun at my children.”
Rebekah Jones is suspected of hacking the government’s emergency messaging system. She is said to have called on nearly 1,800 officials to disclose the actual number of corona deaths “before another 17,000 people have died.”
The hacking investigation began last month after a complaint from the Ministry of Health. Authorities said the unauthorized message was sent from her family’s IP address. Officers raided her Tallahasee home with a search warrant. Several computers and devices have been seized.
A police spokesperson said the officers announced their arrival and tried to ring for 20 minutes until Jones answered the door. The video Jones shared shows the tense moment after she opened the door. On CNN, Jones gave her version of the story:
Gov. “DeSantis needs to worry less about what I’m writing about and more about the people who are sick and dying… doing this to me will not stop me from reporting the data. Ever.”
– FL data scientist Rebekah Jones on having her home raided as part of a cybercrime investigation. pic.twitter.com/ztbqdKjwYv— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) December 8, 2020
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Coronadashboard
Jones, who helped develop the state’s corona dashboard, was fired in May. Governor Ron DeSantis’s cabinet said to the Miami Herald that she disobeyed several times and made adjustments to the corona dashboard on her own. Jones herself says she was fired for refusing to manipulate data. In the American media she denies that she has hacked government systems.
After her firing, Jones created her own covid dashboard, which is more detailed than the government. She fears that the authorities are trying to find out who she has been in contact with within the government services in recent months. And that the government wants to silence her by thwarting her work. She says it is “a thinly disguised attempt by the governor to intimidate scientists.”
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