[ad_1]
Rebekah Jones has been charged with one count of offences against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks and electronic devices, the FDLE said. She surrendered Sunday to the Leon County Detention Facility.
In a series of tweets Saturday, Jones announced her intention to turn herself in to authorities.
“To protect my family from continued police violence, and to show that I’m ready to fight whatever they throw at me, I’m turning myself into police in Florida Sunday night,” Jones tweeted.
“The Governor will not win his war on science and free speech. He will not silence those who speak out.”
Jones was fired from the Florida Department of Health in May and has repeatedly criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handling of the Covid-19 crisis.
“It’s time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead,” said a message sent on November 10, according to the affidavit. “You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late.”
Officials traced that message to an IP address linked to Jones’ house, according to a search-warrant affidavit.
The suit states that IP addresses are commonly “spoofed” and references news articles that found that the username and password for the system of the message that triggered the investigation were publicly available on the health department’s website.
Governor faces mounting scrutiny
The investigation of Jones comes as DeSantis faces increasing scrutiny over his handling of the pandemic.
Jones, who helped build the state’s coronavirus dashboard, has become one of the governor’s harshest critics, publicly alleging that DeSantis was to blame for the mounting death toll.
After her firing, Jones published her own dashboard of Covid-19 stats. She said she received internal records from people who worked for the state, including what she said was proof that state officials “were lying in January (2020) about things like internal reports and notices from the CDC.”
That evidence was on “a bunch of flash drives” that officers took when they raided her house, Jones said. She said she also had documents that were legally accessed from when she was a state employee.
The search warrant allowed officers to recover “any and all computer equipment” that stores or transmits data, including hard drives, devices, software, and correspondence “pertaining to the possession, receipt, origin or distribution of data involving the facilitation of computer crimes offenses.”
Employment attorneys in Florida said that state workers who leaked internal records to Jones could face disciplinary action or possibly legal trouble — although they might be able to seek protection under state whistleblower laws.
[ad_2]
