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Florida COVID-19 Data Scientist Raided by State Police, Computers Confiscated

posted by martyb on Wednesday December 09 2020, @02:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-feels-safe-in-Florida-now? dept.

takyon writes:

Armed police raid home of Florida scientist fired over Covid-19 data

Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist embroiled in a dispute with the state's Republican governor over the handling of coronavirus figures, had her home raided on Monday by armed police who confiscated her computers.

In a stream of posts on Twitter, Jones posted a video of the raid that showed state police carrying handguns escorting her out of her Tallahassee home. She can be heard saying: "He just pointed a gun at my children," with her husband and two children apparently upstairs at the time.

Jones claimed in her tweets that the raid was the work of Ron DeSantis, the governor with whom she has clashed repeatedly since she was fired by the state's department of health in May in a row over Covid-19 data. She compared the incident to sending "the gestapo", adding: "This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power."

The Florida department of law enforcement confirmed they had entered Jones's house on a search warrant. But in a statement the department said the action was related to a recent computer hack of the health department website, in which emergency response coordinators were sent an unauthorised message.

Also at CNN, The Verge, and The Hill.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday December 09 2020, @03:25AM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) on Wednesday December 09 2020, @03:25AM (#1085403) Journal

    Except, the FBI has demonstrated that they CAN get into an iphone . . .

    Costs them a fair bit, tho'. But, yeah, what are those taxes good for if not to contributing to the a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellebrite">Israeli economy?

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    The raid? Stupid broad - she opens her door before looking to see who the hell is out there?

    CNN link in TFS

    Gretl Plessinger, a spokesperson for the law enforcement department, said that agents knocked on Jones' door and called her "in an attempt to minimize disruption to the family." Jones refused to come to the door for 20 minutes and hung up on the agents, and Jones' family was upstairs when agents did enter the house, Plessinger said.

    You were saying...?

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
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  • (Score: 3, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:38AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:38AM (#1085416) Homepage Journal

    OK, I didn't click all the links. I'm accustomed to several sites running the same story, so I didn't click the rest to see how the story might be different.

    So, Jones is one stupid broad. She's lucky the door wasn't kicked in, and SWAT come storming in. I guess if you're a higher profile near-celebrity, the rules are different.

    The Verge supplies a juicy detail about the "hack":

    While there was a suggestion last month that the Florida messaging system might have been hacked rather than simply improperly accessed, it apparently didn’t have particularly strong security anyhow: the affidavit says all of the registered users shared the same username and password.

    If that is true, then anyone with the will to set Jones up could have parked outside her house for a few moments to send the messages. Nice, easy setup, huh?

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    Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @07:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @07:01PM (#1085655)

    Except, the FBI has demonstrated that they CAN PAY SOMEONE to get into an iphone . . .