You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Florida COVID-19 Whistleblower Rebekah Jones Arrested, Accuses Gov. DeSantis of Retaliation

HeadlineJan 19, 2021

In Florida, Rebekah Jones, a data scientist who helped build Florida’s coronavirus tracking dashboard, has turned herself in to the police after the state issued an arrest warrant against her. Jones is accused of hacking confidential data from the Florida Department of Health — allegations Jones denies.

Police raided Jones’s home in Tallahassee last month, seizing her computer and phone and holding her family at gunpoint. She says she’s being targeted in retaliation for refusing to falsify the number of Florida’s COVID-19 cases. Jones accused Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of sending the Gestapo after her. Over the weekend, she wrote on Twitter, “The Governor will not win his war on science and free speech. He will not silence those who speak out.” Jones had recently moved to Washington, D.C., following the traumatic raid. Click here to see our interview with Rebekah Jones.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top