By Brad Brooks
(Reuters) – Florida law enforcement agents on Monday raided the home of a top data scientist who helped build the state’s COVID dashboard and alleges she was fired from her government job because she refused to manipulate data.
The Tallahassee home of Rebekah Jones was raided by agents executing a search warrant on suspicion that Jones hacked into a state Department of Health communications system, said Rick Swearingen, commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Swearingen said agents “seized several devices that will be forensically analyzed.” Jones, in a Twitter post, said her phone “and all my hardware and tech” were confiscated.
An unauthorized text message was sent through the system last month to nearly 1,800 department employees, encouraging them to “speak up before another 17,000 people are dead,” according to a report last month by the Tampa Bay Times, which obtained the missive.
Swearingen said an investigation began last month after the state’s Department of Health filed a complaint saying it had been hacked. He said agents executed a search warrant at Jones’ home after investigators determined that the unauthorized message was sent from an IP address associated with her family internet account.
Jones did not immediately respond to requests for comment. She told USA Today that she did not hack into any government system.
‘TRUTH TO POWER’
Jones was fired from her Department of Health job in May. She has said she was dismissed because she would not manipulate data that would support the state’s reopening of the economy.
The office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in May defended Jones’ firing, telling the Miami Herald she had been insubordinate on numerous occasions, including unilaterally making changes to the state’s COVID dashboard.
Jones posted home security camera footage of Monday’s raid on her Twitter account. It showed agents with weapons drawn, yelling at unseen people on a second floor to exit the home.
“They pointed a gun at my face. They pointed guns at my kids,” Jones wrote on Twitter.
Swearingen, in his written statement, denied that agents pointed guns at anyone in the house.
“This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly,” Jones wrote. “This is what happens to people who speak truth to power.”
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Leslie Adler)
