DeSantis Sends Cops To Raid COVID Data Scientist's Home At Gunpoint
Rebekah Jones has been tracking COVID infections in Florida. Until today, when Gov. Ron DeSantis sent his goons out after her.
Dr. Rebekah Jones built her own COVID-19 dashboard to track Florida infections and deaths after being fired for accurately reporting that data as part of her job with the state.
Since then, she's been reporting COVID stats on her own from her own hardware in her own home. Until today. (WARNING: The video in her first tweet is triggering):
1/
There will be no update today.
At 8:30 am this morning, state police came into my house and took all my hardware and tech.
They were serving a warrant on my computer after DOH filed a complaint.
They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids.. pic.twitter.com/DE2QfOmtPU— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) December 7, 2020
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They took my phone and the computer I use every day to post the case numbers in Florida, and school cases for the entire country.
They took evidence of corruption at the state level.
They claimed it was about a security breach.
This was DeSantis.
He sent the gestapo.— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) December 7, 2020
This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly.
This is what happens to people who speak truth to power.
I tell them my husband and my two children are upstairs... and THEN one of them draws his gun.
On my children.
This is Desantis' Florida.— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) December 7, 2020
If Desantis thought pointing a gun in my face was a good way to get me to shut up, he's about to learn just how wrong he was.
I'll have a new computer tomorrow.
And then I'm going to get back to work.
If you want to help, my website is still at https://t.co/JbQtrVbRuv— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) December 7, 2020
Her resolve to get accurate data out to the public is patriotic. Ron DeSantis and his thugs need to go to jail for this kind of behavior. It's time for the ACLU and other civil liberties organizations to leap to her defense. And for all the Republicans responsible -- from Trump to DeSantis to every election/mask/COVID denier out there -- to pay the legal price for their thuggery and disregard for individual rights.
You think the raid was related to the exposé about how he lied to Floridians about the seriousness of the virus? Hmmm.