- Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist, fired last year by the Department of Health, said on Saturday she would surrender to authorities on Sunday after last week they issued an arrest warrant against her.
- Jones, who worked on the state’s COVID-19 panel, was fired in May after saying she refused to change data related to the state’s COVID-19 pandemic.
- In December, Florida authorities executed an injunction against her property, seizing computers, phones and external storage units after she continued to publish Florida’s COVID-19 data through her own panel.
- “False accusations designed to silence and now arrest me for being a critical government scientist,” said Jones. “That’s the # censorship book definition.”
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In a lengthy topic on Twitter on Saturday, Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who said she was fired in May by the Florida Department of Health for refusing to change COVID-19 data, said she was turning into authorities on Sunday after they issued a warrant last week for his arrest.
The arrest warrant came about a month after authorities broke into Jones’ Florida home and it is unclear what crime the Florida authorities plan to charge. The Florida Police Department did not immediately return Insider’s request for comment on Sunday.
An FDLE spokesman told Florida Today that the agency could share more information about the Jones case as soon as she was arrested.
In another tweet, Jones said a law enforcement official told her lawyer that she could face additional charges if she spoke to the media.
But Jones said on Saturday that the Florida Police Department was unable to connect it to a message sent by the state’s emergency messaging service asking state officials to raise the alarm about Governor Ron DeSantis’ response to the pandemic . The message was the basis of the December warrant, executed on December 7.
Last month, Florida police officers seized computers, phones and external storage devices during the break-in at her home. After the operation, Jones sued the state for civil rights violations and moved from Florida to Washington, DC, according to the Florida Today report.
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“The attack was based on a lie,” said Jones in a tweet saturday. “Still, the state issued an arrest warrant – although the ‘crime’ is not related to the warrant, the scope of the warrant, and they did not wait for a third party to analyze confidential information on my computers. “
Last week, a judge in Tallahassee refused to decide whether state authorities needed to return Jones’ property seized during the operation until authorities decided whether they planned to prosecute her in connection with what was obtained during the warrant on her property, as the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
“To protect my family from ongoing police violence and to show that I am ready to fight whatever they play against me, I am becoming a police officer in Florida on Sunday night,” Jones said in another tweet. “The governor will not win his war against science and freedom of speech. He will not silence those who speak.”
In May, Jones, who worked on the state’s COVID-19 panel, was fired by the Florida Department of Health. State officials then said Jones was fired for “repeated insubordination” and his “blatant disrespect for professionals who worked around the clock to provide important information to the COVID-19 website”.
Jones, however, said his resignation was the result of his refusal to change the COVID-19 data. At the time, Jones said that her managers in the Florida Department of Health told her to delete data that showed that Florida residents had tested positive for COVID-19 as early as January. She also said that she refused to change the data that would have made it appear that certain counties met the criteria to reduce the restrictions when in fact they had not yet met those criteria.
After his resignation, Jones continued to upload and release data through his own online dashboard. But in December, Florida officials obtained a search warrant and broke into his home. Jones speculated on Saturday that she believed a condition for her release from prison could be that she limited her access to technology, limiting her ability to share information.
“False accusations designed to silence and now arrest me for being a critical government scientist,” she said. “This is the definition of a book #censorship. “