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Agents raid home of fired Florida data scientist who built Covid-19 dashboard

969 points by 8ig8 6y ago

xfitm3 6y ago
Not addressing claims of her data accuracy she <strike>did break</strike> apparently broke CFAA: > "FDLE began an investigation November 10, 2020, after receiving a complaint from the Department of Health (DOH) regarding unauthorized access to a Department of Health messaging system which is part of an emergency alert system, to be used for emergencies only," Plessinger said.
- alach11 6y ago
  She may or may not have broken CFAA. I haven't seen any evidence proving it was she who sent the unauthorized message.
  - xfitm3 6y ago
    There was enough evidence to obtain a search warrant which was executed. It won't be public until her case goes to court.
    - alach11 6y ago
      Looks like you're right. The warrant affidavit links her IP address to the unauthorized message. https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article247682356.ece/BINARY/FDLE%20search%20warrant%20affidavit.pdf#storylink=readmore_inline https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article247682356.ece...
- theptip 6y ago
  > she did break CFAA Allegedly
- tmotwu 6y ago
  Somewhat on tangent but interesting fact I just read about the CFAA - two cofounders of HN (Morris and Swartz) were convicted of breaking CFAA - Morris being the first ever.
  - Macha 6y ago
    Assuming Morris and Swartz here are Robert Morris and Aaron Swartz - Morris is a cofounder of YC, but I don't believe he had much to do with HN. Swartz was involved with Reddit, not HN.
    - tmotwu 6y ago
      Ah you might be right about Swartz. I thought Morris developed the HN we use today?
      - Macha 6y ago
        He was a co-developer on the Lisp variant that HN is written in, but as far as I know the HN codebase was PG doing a POC that said Lisp variant could write software (and given he was more concerned with Lisp then and Reddit, then a company YC had investments in, had just rewritten from Lisp to Python, maybe making the case that Lisp could be used)
        tmotwu 6y ago
        I'd say administrative work is considered involvement no? [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5229364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5229364
- jobu 6y ago
  > All authorized users use the same user name and password. Having shared credentials for an account is going to make it very difficult to prove who accessed the system. Also, the single user for a common system typically means that they didn't want to pay extra to have multiple users. Makes me wonder if this incident will open Florida to a lawsuit by the vendor.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    > Having shared credentials for an account is going to make it very difficult to prove who accessed the system. As others have said, if she actually used the system, access from her home IP might be enough to convict. > Makes me wonder if this incident will open Florida to a lawsuit by the vendor. Possibly, but that'd be civil law. I definitely wouldn't want to be in that agency's shoes right now.
- zug_zug 6y ago
  Sure. But if it turns out her allegations are correct, and the state was manipulating the data, I think that more than excuses it, and makes the police action malicious (criminal?) retaliation. If the state wasn't manipulating any data, then it's disorderly and improper (though doesn't call for armed officers still...). Like most things, you have to sort out the details of the case before you can pronounce judgement. Call me biased, but for some reason, when people sacrifice their careers and freedoms to send out a warning about corruption, I usually give them a lot more trust than the institution under scrutiny. Time will tell.
Kye 6y ago
The thread where she tweeted about it if you want to go straight to the source: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665
- ISL 6y ago
  The video is worth a watch.
sanj 6y ago
“ All authorized users use the same user name and password.”
- qrbLPHiKpiux 6y ago
  It’s Weev all over again.
mixologic 6y ago
I sure hope she can get some good legal help. Thats probably the best way to fight this kind of corruption.
- mixologic 6y ago
  (if it is corruption.. as more of the story comes out it sounds somewhat like she may have overstepped some legal boundaries)
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    pointed guns at her kids.
    - folkhack 6y ago
      Although terrifying, many people in the US won't see that as a problem along the lines of "she broke the law and these are her consequences". I don't know if that's getting too "into the fray" for HN but... whatever... I feel it's important to express this. As others have posted - here's the video... I think it's important we watch it: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 I hope she gets good legal representation. EDIT: Yeah there's tons of comments in here that are scarily along the lines of "she broke the law and here are the consequences" - gross. Just gross.
      - Vivtek 6y ago
        Plenty of people in America think that having your kids put in refrigerated cages is a perfectly normal and justifiable consequence of your commission of a misdemeanor. Just threatening them temporarily with violent death is nothing compared with that.
    - nordsieck 6y ago
      > pointed guns at her kids. That is a problem. It might be poor training. It might be bad policy. It might be personnel who make bad decisions. Or some mix of all three. But it isn't corruption.
towndrunk 6y ago
https://www.ocalapost.com/rebekah-jones-created-revenge-site-posted-nudes-of-a-man-desantis-speaks-out/ https://www.ocalapost.com/rebekah-jones-created-revenge-site...
- Kye 6y ago
  This doesn't seem to justify a guns-out raid of her home half a year later.
  - hoppla 6y ago
    How can the police aim a gun at someone that clearly do not pose a threat?
    - djrogers 6y ago
      I didn't see any gun-aiming at her, or even drawn guns before she was escorted outside in the posted video. The only place I've seen that claim is from the subject of the raid.
      - deleted 6y ago
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      - deleted 6y ago
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      - unsatchmo 6y ago
        Then you weren't watching the video. They drew guns after entering the residence. They pointed them up the stairs where she said her husband and two children were. Thus they were pointing guns at her children. Watch the full video on her twitter account, it happens about 10-20 seconds into the video.
        cgriswald 6y ago
        Whether the claims are true or not, the video does not support it. > They drew guns after entering the residence. Yes, but she claims: >> They pointed a gun in my face. In the video, she clearly leaves the residence before any guns are drawn. Potentially the cop to the left of the door from the camera's perspective has his hand on his gun, but it's not drawn either. So if this happened, it's not on video. > They pointed them up the stairs where she said her husband and two children were. Thus they were pointing guns at her children. She doesn't say that and the video doesn't support it. She says: >> I tell them my husband and my two children are upstairs... and THEN one of them draws his gun. >> On my children. According to the video, she's outside at this point. It's not clear how she can know where they are, except that she might have assumed they were where she last saw them. She actually says they 'are upstairs' which doesn't mean 'at the top of the stairs', but 'on the second floor.' If anything, the video disputes the idea that they are at the top of the stairs. There is a light source shining down on the steps, but there are no shadows. In fact, I don't even read that she's making the claim that the cops pointed guns at her children, merely that they drew the guns on her children. The video does support this claim since it could be argued that they were drawing their guns on anyone who might be in the house, whether they were physically in the same space or not.
shakna 6y ago
> All authorized users use the same user name and password. Well, if you want to prevent unauthorised access to your custom-built messaging system, this is not the way to do it. Proving who accessed it has become a huge forensic investigation at that point. Saying anyone hacked a system with such a clear and simple single-point-of-failure doesn't exactly ring true. It might be true on a technical level, but you left the door wide open.
- codys 6y ago
  It's also unclear how one could know it wasn't an authorized user who sent the message. ie: could be any of folks who are authorized who sent it. Of course, they may have just asked all the authorized users, and had each of them deny it.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > Of course, they may have just asked all the authorized users, and had each of them deny it. Or they could... check the logs, pull the IP, get a warrant, and get the account/ address associated with that IP. This is basic stuff. They got a warrant. Judges aren't going to issue a warrant based on asking a bunch of people if they sent a message.
    - blake1 6y ago
      Have you ever read a warrant application? I have read a few, and they love to use the phrase "information and belief" to persuade the judge. That's just a fancy way of saying "speculate," and judges don't seem to object. We should see when the warrant application becomes public.
      - an_opabinia 6y ago
        Another way to interpret it is, law and order types have been co-opted by Republicans, rather than the other way around. It shouldn't take a Dave Chapelle colorfully telling you it doesn't fucking matter that some Florida data scientist broke a dumb law when she was disclosing information implicating Republicans of incompetence.
throwaway122378 6y ago
Such a crazy time, who do you believe? Was it the govt afraid of covid data or was she guilty of revenge harassment against her boyfriend?
implying 6y ago
I just donated to her org, and you should too. https://floridacovidaction.com/donate/ https://floridacovidaction.com/donate/
- giantg2 6y ago
  Why? We have no evidence of this being either lawful or unlawful. I guess people just want to downvote my question without an answer.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    The default is lawful until proven otherwise.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      And that goes for the police who executed the search warrant - lawful until proven otherwise. The warrant is issued by a judge meeting a probable cause standard.
      - Aperocky 6y ago
        I didn't say the warrant was not lawful. But I have the right to give money to whoever I want until it is shown to be unlawful.
        giantg2 6y ago
        You have the right to give money to anyone whether their actions were lawful or not. I was just wondering why people jump to give money to people they never met, based on 30 seconds of video and a short article. Maybe there's more to it, like what was listed on the search warrant.
      - tartoran 6y ago
        And pointing a gun at her children is just dandy, isn’t it? Cops training and behavior is one huge problem in the US. The other part of the problem is people like you, people who justify and normalize their violent behavior. If i were to choose what’s worse I’d say it is actually not the cops who are trained poorly, it’s people like you whose thinking is distorted towards violence
geocrasher 6y ago
Somebody fired from a job over a grievance allegedly used unauthorized access and is surprised the FBI showed up at her door? I don't understand. And in case anyone thinks I'm trolling, I'm not. Dead serious. Edit: I said FBI, I was wrong about that- but still- if she's accusing of unauthorized access, isn't such a raid par for the course? added allegedly above.
- denimnerd46 6y ago
  Yeah sounds particularly risky to break the CFAA.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    Or indeed simply to be accused of doing so; sounds like a _lot_ of people had access to the shared credentials.
- freewilly1040 6y ago
  I'm not sure she is surprised. But if her grievance is that her employer is not fulfilling its public health mission, and the data she is sharing is public health data she feels the public has a right to see, then she might feel getting arrested is unjust.
  - x86ARMsRace 6y ago
    While the arrest may or may not be unjust, the fact of the matter is that she broke the law. Which typically results in police showing up. Regardless of your attitude about what she did, the title can be really boiled down to 'data scientist releases confidential federal data; gets arrested'.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - inetsee 6y ago
      Can you explain to me why COVID-19 data should be considered confidential? My first thought is that she got raided because she was releasing data that contradicted the Official Florida State COVID-19 data.
godelski 6y ago
I'm always amazed at how often cops approach every day tasks with weapons drawn. Reading the article (and being aware of the ongoing story) there's no indication (to me) that there would be any hostility facing the officers. Thus it is easy to draw a conclusion of threat escalation from the police towards a citizen (if this is the wrong conclusion to draw then the police need to do a lot more work to justify their actions and explain why they thought there was a threat, because right now no one should buy that). This is unacceptable gun behavior in any environment and goes against conventional training (I'm sure there are gun users here or people who at least shot in the boy scouts or something). I mean officer #2 even appears to have his finger on the trigger (officer #1 doesn't). There's a rule "never point a weapon at something you do not intend to destroy." Pointing a weapon at a person indicates they are willing to destroy (kill) that person. This is unacceptable in non-violent cases where there is not an equal force against them. I just can't imagine the training they get. It makes me feel like Surviving Edged Weapons[0] is, at least in spirit, used. [1] I've seen a lot of people with bad trigger control and not knowing proper gun safety, but I've seen it far too often from police. The acceptable level of this for police is zero and it isn't even close to that. [0] This is a cult classic for "Bad" movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ZpyKSmgdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ZpyKSmgdE [1] From what I've seen, it does still seem like they do similar training that is highly fear based. As in "you could die at any second. It is you or them" and does not reflect the reality that being a cop is relatively safe. At least that narrative is not in the public domain. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-dangerous-is-police-work https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-da...
- Benjammer 6y ago
  Most police academies subject trainees to hours of video footage of cops getting ambushed by people with guns, and drill into them that any situation can turn deadly in an instant. They are hard-wired to think that they can lose their life in any second in any interaction with any citizen no matter what the circumstances.
  - StillBored 6y ago
    Right, and that is why the "more training" argument I've heard some use as an alternative to the "de-fund the police" doesn't hold water. My own experience working near a lot of police early in my career led me to believe that the majority of the training instills a "us vs them" attitude in the police, and it carries through to everything they do. Combined with the constant bombardment of stories about the tiny percentage of cases where someone is actually violent and the results are predictable. Frankly, i'm of the opinion that the vast majority of cops shouldn't be carrying lethal weapons into the average traffic stop or whatever other activity is basically 100% safe outside of infinitesimal number of cases which go violent. After all, by pulling over, the person has basically already yielded to their authority.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
I have to admit that stories like this evoke a really strong, visceral reaction in me. The depiction of police (allegedly) escalating the situation with threat of deadly force, especially with kids present, literally (not figuratively) got my adrenaline going. I'd be interested in hearing both sides of the story with supporting evidence.
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
  >I'd be interested in hearing both sides of the story with supporting evidence. The thing is this story is not at all surprising or unusual for the US. This kind of stuff is constantly happening on an almost weekly basis and after all the evidence is collected the result is "Yes this all did happen and no we are not going to do anything about it"
  - nojvek 6y ago
    This not happens frequently but innocent people also are either permanently injured/traumatized/dead. US law enforcement has very little oversight on their use of force.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      No oversight. Police departments are not required to report how many citizens they kill nationally, and they’re shielded from legal liability in virtually every case. Even when charges are brought, judges parse the law to an insane degree, to the point where sending attack dogs against a surrendering suspect in the woods is illegal, but not if they’re in a “grassy ditch”. I’m not being hyperbolic, that’s an actual case where cops got off because there was no clear and specific precedent that what they were doing was wrong. And since they got off, they didn’t make new precedent to stop it in the future. Of course.
  - cardamomo 6y ago
    Along those lines, I recommended listening to a recent Radiolab episode that dissects US police departments' lack of legal responsibility to ensure people's safety. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/no-special-duty https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/no-sp...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mellosouls 6y ago
Background to this discussed earlier in the year fwiw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23231237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23231237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236613
JPKab 6y ago
As I recall, she first became famous claiming that the dashboard was deceptive and hiding cases and deaths. That turned out to not be true, at all. It was just a very convenient story for journalists who, weirdly, have been obsessed with highlighting deaths in states run by Republicans, and simultaneously ignoring the same in blue states due to their narrative bias. Illinois has been practically ignored because of this bias, despite very bad numbers in the latest spike, while when Georgia first relaxed it's lockdowns in May, articles were published calling it "an experiment in human sacrifice". (Didn't see a surge in cases afterwards, since most Georgians are sane and just kept wearing masks while going places) While I always am against excessive police force, I also am fed up with journalists trying to dramatize things, and add credibility when it's not needed to any cause celebre. A person who builds dashboards isn't a data scientist BTW. Edit: I'm fully aware I'll be downvoted to oblivion for this post, but this person is a COVID alarmist, has pushed for excessive caution, and claims credentials and skills she doesn't have. I particularly resent her pushing for keeping elementary schools closed despite all of Europe and the vast majority of peer reviewed scientific literature saying otherwise. She's marketed herself as a renegade scientist all year, and dramatized all of it to great effect. Second Edit: Here she is in spring making the claim on Rachel Maddow that Florida was "hiding" hospitalization data. Absolutely untrue, and would have required conspiracy by public and private medical orgs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvzt6kGzHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvzt6kGzHw Neutral media outlets wouldn't touch the story.
- ip_addr 6y ago
  I would be interested in sources.
- IvyMike 6y ago
  > That turned out to not be true, at all. Do you have any citation on this? That would help your case a lot.
  - JPKab 6y ago
    She made claims that Florida was hiding hospitalizations in May. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Jones#cite_note-17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Jones#cite_note-17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvzt6kGzHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvzt6kGzHw This was patently untrue, and sensationalist. The absence of a massive, national scandal resulting in the impeachment of DeSantis proves that Florida wasn't hiding anything, months later. Her claims were always made without evidence, and were magnified by partisan actors.
chris_wot 6y ago
"All authorized users use the same user name and password." Oh, well done.
every 6y ago
You made The Gov look bad? Then yeah, you gonna get The Treatment. What did you expect?
- kurthr 6y ago
  I don't know... rule of law?
- Vivtek 6y ago
  Something better than a shithole country?
ogre_codes 6y ago
Lots of people jumping to conclusions one way or the other here, but keep in mind a few things. #1 The police had a warrant. That means they had to have a certain amount of evidence to present to a judge. "She is a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind" is probably not enough to get a warrant. Server logs with an IP address would hold up in court. #2 Pointing guns at clearly non-aggressive people and particularly kids is bullshit in general. The PD says she hung up on them and knocked on the door for 20 minutes. Maybe BS cover up, but if true, might explain the seemingly over-aggressive entry. Not jumping to conclusions, but sometimes decent people do stupid things.
- giantg2 6y ago
  It's possible the guns were not point at them but were in a low ready too.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    There is a video, I didn't watch it, I was just taking her comment about guns at face value.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      There's only 30 seconds, but I couldn't see the guns pointed at anyone unless they were off-frame.
      - Balgair 6y ago
        20 seconds in the video she posted here: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 Officer is clearly pointing a firearm upstairs at the family.
        giantg2 6y ago
        It doesn't show people upstairs in that video. Even if they were, they were doing it to clear the corner and then lowering the weapon after identifying them as non-hostile (or no person at all since they aren't on video).
eznzt 6y ago
What if this is false? Like, everybody here is quick to believe that someone raided a home and pointed guns at the faces of children. What if it is a lie? How do we know it's not beyond "oh yes it's the US so it makes sense"
- tt433 6y ago
  What if I had four legs and a tail? Edit for clarity: both are non sequiturs. You provide no justification for your spurious speculation. The article has a video.
- dghlsakjg 6y ago
  There's a video corroborating exactly what she says happened in the article that is linked. You can click the link and see for yourself.
  - kipchak 6y ago
    I just watched the video, and I didn't see anyone have a gun pointed at them. I saw a cop holding a gun and another cop point his gun at the top of a staircase that's out of frame.
cwkoss 6y ago
In a just world, these cops would get a 10 year prison term for this. They had no reason to aim their guns at these citizens, especially children.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  Maybe they assume Florida Man lives there.
angry_octet 6y ago
Defund the police.
thinkloop 6y ago
> "complaint from the Department of Health (DOH) regarding unauthorized access to a Department of Health messaging system which is part of an emergency alert system, to be used for emergencies only" > "Ms. Jones refused to come to the door for 20 minutes and hung-up on agents. After several attempts and verbal notifications that law enforcement officers were there to serve a legal search warrant, Ms. Jones eventually came to the door and allowed agents to enter,"
thepasswordis 6y ago
I'm sorry but this is absurd. No the police did not "raid" her house. The showed up at her house and knocked on the door for 20 minutes until she eventually answered the door, and was arrested. They did go into her house with guns drawn, presumably because the other people inside were refusing to come out. To people who are shocked that they would do this: there are like a billion guns in The United States. The cops are doing this because the threat of somebody shooting them is real. To avoid this: when the police show up at your house, with a warrant, come outside unarmed. Part of the respect of due process is reciprocal. They have a warrant, which was granted to them by a judge. They aren't requesting to come into your house, they are ordering you to leave, as a part of a functioning judicial system. On this person's twitter account, she calls these people the "gestapo". I'm sorry, but no these are not the gestapo. The gestapo were a secret police used by the Nazis. They showed up at people's houses and killed them or sent them to death camps. They didn't use a warrant, politely knock on your door and try to call your phone for 20 minutes, and eventually take you to a jail cell where you would be granted a trial. I'm so fed up with the holocaust denial that these people engage in when they make these outrageous comparisons. The Nazis were NOTHING like contemporary America. NOTHING. They were loading human beings into train cars, sending them to industrial killing facilities, and killing them. Sometimes they would perform vivisections on them, they would be raped, and tortured, and starved to death if they waited long enough to be killed by the gas chambers. That is so, so, so far from anything that is happening in The US, and every time somebody tries to make one of these comparisons it only causes people to forget who the Nazis were, what they did, and how horrific it was. This woman's home wasn't raided, she was served a search warrant. These people weren't the gestapo, they were a civilian police force. Stop this.
beepboopbeep 6y ago
They drew guns on her and her kids. I'd say we should be outraged, but we're awash in outrage because the rule of law has become a one sided bludgeoning instrument for the government to suppress dissent. I can't wait to get out of here. To hell with this place any more.
jgalt212 6y ago
My laptop was not able to keep up with all the adtech running on this website.
_def 6y ago
Ahh, the land of the free!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dehrmann 6y ago
Media outlets... "Agents raid home of fired Florida data scientist who built COVID-19 dashboard" That implies it was raided because she was working on the dashboard, but it was raided because she allegedly accessed an emergency messaging system she should have no longer had access to. That headline primes you to be outraged. Could this have been revenge from the agency for what happened earlier this year? Maybe, but the article doesn't actually suggest that, and there's no evidence of it.
indigodaddy 6y ago
She says she has backups of the website data and files, but I wonder if she has backups of the evidence of state corruption that she said was also on her computer?
olliej 6y ago
Note that none of them were armed, she was cooperating, and the police came in with their guns drawn and pointed them at children. This is why police should be unarmed. They can't be trusted if they have guns on hand. I hope she sues those officers.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  Note that the video doesn't show the police pointing guns at any one, child or adult.
  - olliej 6y ago
    I'm going to trust the women screaming about them pointing their guns at her children. But even if they just had them out, that's improper police work. You gun should only be drawn if the intent is to kill someone. They went in there with the intent of terrorising their victim. At no point did anyone demonstrate any threat to the officers, and so at no point should they have had their guns out. That's basic gun safety 101.
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      > I'm going to trust the women screaming about them pointing their guns at her children. Sure, you can do what you want but usually in law enforcement we like to see evidence presented for serious accusations. In fact that is how they obtained the search warrant for the screaming woman's residence, by showing evidence to a judge. > But even if they just had them out, that's improper police work. What are your qualifications for criticizing warrant service procedure? > You gun should only be drawn if the intent is to kill someone. Thats wrong in multiple ways, you don't seem to have the relevant background knowledge and experience to discuss this issue. Ask yourself how upset you would be with a police officer's use of deadly force if you learned that he had intended to kill the person he shot, rather than intending to save someone's life? > They went in there with the intent of terrorising their victim. You don't know that. You could just as easily believe that the woman refused to open the door for 20 minutes in order to antagonize law officers in the performance of their official duties. This is why we want people to support their statements with evidence instead of pretending to read minds. > At no point did anyone demonstrate any threat to the officers, and so at no point should they have had their guns out. Perhaps that would have been the case if they had responded to the officers in a timely manner. After a 20 minute wait, its possible that the individuals in the house have set up to attack the police when they enter. > That's basic gun safety 101. Hard to take lectures on gun safety from someone who hasn't demonstrated the relevant qualifications.
stickyricky 6y ago
Over Thanksgiving I shot a gun for the first time. An AR15 and a Glock. The AR was fun to shoot. Kind of nerve-wracking holding a weapon that could kill someone but fun none the less. The Glock was another story. It kicked like crazy and you could really feel the power of each shot in your arms. I didn't have any fun shooting it and I was a more than a little terrified I was going to hurt someone. Even when it was empty I had so much unease just setting it down on the table. Seeing those police officers enter someones home with their guns drawn and pointed was... a new feeling. I had an immense sense of dread just knowing how much power was behind those guns. The thought that someone was pointing it at children is just beyond my comprehension now. For what? Allegedly logging into a website? If shes guilty, go to jail, pay the fine, whatever. But the level of escalation to even walk through the front door with your gun drawn. The level of... I don't know... disrespect? Hatred? I can't even begin to describe to someone who doesn't know just how much force and how casually its being shown. Truly, these officers are a disgrace to Florida. The people who trained them are a disgrace. And the people who empower them to behave this way are a disgrace.
- bigyikes 6y ago
  I had an identical first-time experience a few months ago. For some reason I was expecting the Glock to be way easier and less terrifying than the AR, but it wasn't. It really blew my mind that I could aim directly at a human-sized target only 6 feet away and totally miss. Isn't the first thing they tell you about guns something like "don't point it at anything you don't intend to destroy"? How does a trained officer hear that two children are in the house and not immediately de-escalate? This is insanity.
  - JamesLeonis 6y ago
    > How does a trained officer hear that two children are in the house and not immediately de-escalate? Unfortunately the police shoot kids fairly routinely, as lawyer Greg Doucette shows in this twitter thread. https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1336132653481865217 https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1336132653481865217
purrplexed 6y ago
It is a shame that Florida exists as a state.
ab_testing 6y ago
Warrant https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article247682356.ece/BINARY/FDLE%20search%20warrant%20affidavit.pdf https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article247682356.ece...
rambojazz 6y ago
Has anybody verified the original story where she says that she refused to manipulate data? Is that true? I'm not from the US and I don't know if "floridatoday.com" is a trusted source.
dusted 6y ago
or they could have changed the password, but that being 'murica, I guess dudes with ghuunz is a reasonable alternative
arendtio 6y ago
Actually, now I wonder how big the difference between the official and her numbers is. I looks like someone really want to silence her.
mieses 6y ago
There is another thread discussing the benefits of government licensing the title "data scientist" while in this thread we complain about the government persecuting a data scientist for apparently political reasons.
qwertox 6y ago
I wish that people with this mindset could be denied entry to Europe even for vacationing. They are aware of the context, they know that they are entering a house where also a husband and two children are living. What makes them believe that they pose any kind of threat? I'm not expecting them to ask for a coffee and discuss the matter and further proceedings at the table, but threatening everybody with a firearm like that?
- tiktokdoc 6y ago
  The chilling effect is the point.
crnkofe 6y ago
This must be one of the weirdest arrests I've seen. I would understand officers busting in guns drawn if they considered denizens dangerous. I would understand an arrest without guns drawn. But casually walking in with a gun (in case there's something to kill) makes this look like a psycho checking in. From my non-US perspective all these gun first arrests look crazy, especially for handling car speeding or non-violent offenders.
consultSKI 6y ago
#sad
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
> Jones has had a history of run-ins with law enforcement in Florida. It involves multiple cases, all but a single case closed without a conviction. One is a robbery charge that was dropped when no evidence was produced for prosecution. The rest, including the active one, relate to Jones' personal life. She is currently facing one misdemeanor count of cyberstalking, stemming from what appears to be an acrimonious breakup. BPD case illegally accessing a state database to publish misleading covid agitprop? I'm shocked.
hzzap 6y ago
Land of the free? The US a has created its own reality and complicity enables it to persist. It made its bed, now lie in it or do something and stop whining.

969 points by 8ig8 6y ago

Not addressing claims of her data accuracy she <strike>did break</strike> apparently broke CFAA: > "FDLE began an investigation November 10, 2020, after receiving a complaint from the Department of Health (DOH) regarding unauthorized access to a Department of Health messaging system which is part of an emergency alert system, to be used for emergencies only," Plessinger said.

alach11 6y ago
She may or may not have broken CFAA. I haven't seen any evidence proving it was she who sent the unauthorized message.
- xfitm3 6y ago
  There was enough evidence to obtain a search warrant which was executed. It won't be public until her case goes to court.
  - alach11 6y ago
    Looks like you're right. The warrant affidavit links her IP address to the unauthorized message. https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article247682356.ece/BINARY/FDLE%20search%20warrant%20affidavit.pdf#storylink=readmore_inline https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article247682356.ece...
theptip 6y ago
> she did break CFAA Allegedly
tmotwu 6y ago
Somewhat on tangent but interesting fact I just read about the CFAA - two cofounders of HN (Morris and Swartz) were convicted of breaking CFAA - Morris being the first ever.
- Macha 6y ago
  Assuming Morris and Swartz here are Robert Morris and Aaron Swartz - Morris is a cofounder of YC, but I don't believe he had much to do with HN. Swartz was involved with Reddit, not HN.
  - tmotwu 6y ago
    Ah you might be right about Swartz. I thought Morris developed the HN we use today?
    - Macha 6y ago
      He was a co-developer on the Lisp variant that HN is written in, but as far as I know the HN codebase was PG doing a POC that said Lisp variant could write software (and given he was more concerned with Lisp then and Reddit, then a company YC had investments in, had just rewritten from Lisp to Python, maybe making the case that Lisp could be used)
      - tmotwu 6y ago
        I'd say administrative work is considered involvement no? [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5229364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5229364
jobu 6y ago
> All authorized users use the same user name and password. Having shared credentials for an account is going to make it very difficult to prove who accessed the system. Also, the single user for a common system typically means that they didn't want to pay extra to have multiple users. Makes me wonder if this incident will open Florida to a lawsuit by the vendor.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  > Having shared credentials for an account is going to make it very difficult to prove who accessed the system. As others have said, if she actually used the system, access from her home IP might be enough to convict. > Makes me wonder if this incident will open Florida to a lawsuit by the vendor. Possibly, but that'd be civil law. I definitely wouldn't want to be in that agency's shoes right now.
zug_zug 6y ago
Sure. But if it turns out her allegations are correct, and the state was manipulating the data, I think that more than excuses it, and makes the police action malicious (criminal?) retaliation. If the state wasn't manipulating any data, then it's disorderly and improper (though doesn't call for armed officers still...). Like most things, you have to sort out the details of the case before you can pronounce judgement. Call me biased, but for some reason, when people sacrifice their careers and freedoms to send out a warning about corruption, I usually give them a lot more trust than the institution under scrutiny. Time will tell.

Kye 6y ago

The thread where she tweeted about it if you want to go straight to the source: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665

ISL 6y ago
The video is worth a watch.

sanj 6y ago

“ All authorized users use the same user name and password.”

qrbLPHiKpiux 6y ago
It’s Weev all over again.

mixologic 6y ago

I sure hope she can get some good legal help. Thats probably the best way to fight this kind of corruption.

mixologic 6y ago
(if it is corruption.. as more of the story comes out it sounds somewhat like she may have overstepped some legal boundaries)
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  pointed guns at her kids.
  - folkhack 6y ago
    Although terrifying, many people in the US won't see that as a problem along the lines of "she broke the law and these are her consequences". I don't know if that's getting too "into the fray" for HN but... whatever... I feel it's important to express this. As others have posted - here's the video... I think it's important we watch it: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 I hope she gets good legal representation. EDIT: Yeah there's tons of comments in here that are scarily along the lines of "she broke the law and here are the consequences" - gross. Just gross.
    - Vivtek 6y ago
      Plenty of people in America think that having your kids put in refrigerated cages is a perfectly normal and justifiable consequence of your commission of a misdemeanor. Just threatening them temporarily with violent death is nothing compared with that.
  - nordsieck 6y ago
    > pointed guns at her kids. That is a problem. It might be poor training. It might be bad policy. It might be personnel who make bad decisions. Or some mix of all three. But it isn't corruption.

towndrunk 6y ago

https://www.ocalapost.com/rebekah-jones-created-revenge-site-posted-nudes-of-a-man-desantis-speaks-out/ https://www.ocalapost.com/rebekah-jones-created-revenge-site...

Kye 6y ago
This doesn't seem to justify a guns-out raid of her home half a year later.
- hoppla 6y ago
  How can the police aim a gun at someone that clearly do not pose a threat?
  - djrogers 6y ago
    I didn't see any gun-aiming at her, or even drawn guns before she was escorted outside in the posted video. The only place I've seen that claim is from the subject of the raid.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - unsatchmo 6y ago
      Then you weren't watching the video. They drew guns after entering the residence. They pointed them up the stairs where she said her husband and two children were. Thus they were pointing guns at her children. Watch the full video on her twitter account, it happens about 10-20 seconds into the video.
      - cgriswald 6y ago
        Whether the claims are true or not, the video does not support it. > They drew guns after entering the residence. Yes, but she claims: >> They pointed a gun in my face. In the video, she clearly leaves the residence before any guns are drawn. Potentially the cop to the left of the door from the camera's perspective has his hand on his gun, but it's not drawn either. So if this happened, it's not on video. > They pointed them up the stairs where she said her husband and two children were. Thus they were pointing guns at her children. She doesn't say that and the video doesn't support it. She says: >> I tell them my husband and my two children are upstairs... and THEN one of them draws his gun. >> On my children. According to the video, she's outside at this point. It's not clear how she can know where they are, except that she might have assumed they were where she last saw them. She actually says they 'are upstairs' which doesn't mean 'at the top of the stairs', but 'on the second floor.' If anything, the video disputes the idea that they are at the top of the stairs. There is a light source shining down on the steps, but there are no shadows. In fact, I don't even read that she's making the claim that the cops pointed guns at her children, merely that they drew the guns on her children. The video does support this claim since it could be argued that they were drawing their guns on anyone who might be in the house, whether they were physically in the same space or not.

shakna 6y ago

> All authorized users use the same user name and password. Well, if you want to prevent unauthorised access to your custom-built messaging system, this is not the way to do it. Proving who accessed it has become a huge forensic investigation at that point. Saying anyone hacked a system with such a clear and simple single-point-of-failure doesn't exactly ring true. It might be true on a technical level, but you left the door wide open.

codys 6y ago
It's also unclear how one could know it wasn't an authorized user who sent the message. ie: could be any of folks who are authorized who sent it. Of course, they may have just asked all the authorized users, and had each of them deny it.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Of course, they may have just asked all the authorized users, and had each of them deny it. Or they could... check the logs, pull the IP, get a warrant, and get the account/ address associated with that IP. This is basic stuff. They got a warrant. Judges aren't going to issue a warrant based on asking a bunch of people if they sent a message.
  - blake1 6y ago
    Have you ever read a warrant application? I have read a few, and they love to use the phrase "information and belief" to persuade the judge. That's just a fancy way of saying "speculate," and judges don't seem to object. We should see when the warrant application becomes public.
    - an_opabinia 6y ago
      Another way to interpret it is, law and order types have been co-opted by Republicans, rather than the other way around. It shouldn't take a Dave Chapelle colorfully telling you it doesn't fucking matter that some Florida data scientist broke a dumb law when she was disclosing information implicating Republicans of incompetence.

throwaway122378 6y ago

Such a crazy time, who do you believe? Was it the govt afraid of covid data or was she guilty of revenge harassment against her boyfriend?

implying 6y ago

I just donated to her org, and you should too. https://floridacovidaction.com/donate/ https://floridacovidaction.com/donate/

giantg2 6y ago
Why? We have no evidence of this being either lawful or unlawful. I guess people just want to downvote my question without an answer.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  The default is lawful until proven otherwise.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    And that goes for the police who executed the search warrant - lawful until proven otherwise. The warrant is issued by a judge meeting a probable cause standard.
    - Aperocky 6y ago
      I didn't say the warrant was not lawful. But I have the right to give money to whoever I want until it is shown to be unlawful.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        You have the right to give money to anyone whether their actions were lawful or not. I was just wondering why people jump to give money to people they never met, based on 30 seconds of video and a short article. Maybe there's more to it, like what was listed on the search warrant.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      And pointing a gun at her children is just dandy, isn’t it? Cops training and behavior is one huge problem in the US. The other part of the problem is people like you, people who justify and normalize their violent behavior. If i were to choose what’s worse I’d say it is actually not the cops who are trained poorly, it’s people like you whose thinking is distorted towards violence

geocrasher 6y ago

Somebody fired from a job over a grievance allegedly used unauthorized access and is surprised the FBI showed up at her door? I don't understand. And in case anyone thinks I'm trolling, I'm not. Dead serious. Edit: I said FBI, I was wrong about that- but still- if she's accusing of unauthorized access, isn't such a raid par for the course? added allegedly above.

denimnerd46 6y ago
Yeah sounds particularly risky to break the CFAA.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Or indeed simply to be accused of doing so; sounds like a _lot_ of people had access to the shared credentials.
freewilly1040 6y ago
I'm not sure she is surprised. But if her grievance is that her employer is not fulfilling its public health mission, and the data she is sharing is public health data she feels the public has a right to see, then she might feel getting arrested is unjust.
- x86ARMsRace 6y ago
  While the arrest may or may not be unjust, the fact of the matter is that she broke the law. Which typically results in police showing up. Regardless of your attitude about what she did, the title can be really boiled down to 'data scientist releases confidential federal data; gets arrested'.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - inetsee 6y ago
    Can you explain to me why COVID-19 data should be considered confidential? My first thought is that she got raided because she was releasing data that contradicted the Official Florida State COVID-19 data.

godelski 6y ago

I'm always amazed at how often cops approach every day tasks with weapons drawn. Reading the article (and being aware of the ongoing story) there's no indication (to me) that there would be any hostility facing the officers. Thus it is easy to draw a conclusion of threat escalation from the police towards a citizen (if this is the wrong conclusion to draw then the police need to do a lot more work to justify their actions and explain why they thought there was a threat, because right now no one should buy that). This is unacceptable gun behavior in any environment and goes against conventional training (I'm sure there are gun users here or people who at least shot in the boy scouts or something). I mean officer #2 even appears to have his finger on the trigger (officer #1 doesn't). There's a rule "never point a weapon at something you do not intend to destroy." Pointing a weapon at a person indicates they are willing to destroy (kill) that person. This is unacceptable in non-violent cases where there is not an equal force against them. I just can't imagine the training they get. It makes me feel like Surviving Edged Weapons[0] is, at least in spirit, used. [1] I've seen a lot of people with bad trigger control and not knowing proper gun safety, but I've seen it far too often from police. The acceptable level of this for police is zero and it isn't even close to that. [0] This is a cult classic for "Bad" movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ZpyKSmgdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ZpyKSmgdE [1] From what I've seen, it does still seem like they do similar training that is highly fear based. As in "you could die at any second. It is you or them" and does not reflect the reality that being a cop is relatively safe. At least that narrative is not in the public domain. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-dangerous-is-police-work https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-da...

Benjammer 6y ago
Most police academies subject trainees to hours of video footage of cops getting ambushed by people with guns, and drill into them that any situation can turn deadly in an instant. They are hard-wired to think that they can lose their life in any second in any interaction with any citizen no matter what the circumstances.
- StillBored 6y ago
  Right, and that is why the "more training" argument I've heard some use as an alternative to the "de-fund the police" doesn't hold water. My own experience working near a lot of police early in my career led me to believe that the majority of the training instills a "us vs them" attitude in the police, and it carries through to everything they do. Combined with the constant bombardment of stories about the tiny percentage of cases where someone is actually violent and the results are predictable. Frankly, i'm of the opinion that the vast majority of cops shouldn't be carrying lethal weapons into the average traffic stop or whatever other activity is basically 100% safe outside of infinitesimal number of cases which go violent. After all, by pulling over, the person has basically already yielded to their authority.

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

I have to admit that stories like this evoke a really strong, visceral reaction in me. The depiction of police (allegedly) escalating the situation with threat of deadly force, especially with kids present, literally (not figuratively) got my adrenaline going. I'd be interested in hearing both sides of the story with supporting evidence.

SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
>I'd be interested in hearing both sides of the story with supporting evidence. The thing is this story is not at all surprising or unusual for the US. This kind of stuff is constantly happening on an almost weekly basis and after all the evidence is collected the result is "Yes this all did happen and no we are not going to do anything about it"
- nojvek 6y ago
  This not happens frequently but innocent people also are either permanently injured/traumatized/dead. US law enforcement has very little oversight on their use of force.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    No oversight. Police departments are not required to report how many citizens they kill nationally, and they’re shielded from legal liability in virtually every case. Even when charges are brought, judges parse the law to an insane degree, to the point where sending attack dogs against a surrendering suspect in the woods is illegal, but not if they’re in a “grassy ditch”. I’m not being hyperbolic, that’s an actual case where cops got off because there was no clear and specific precedent that what they were doing was wrong. And since they got off, they didn’t make new precedent to stop it in the future. Of course.
- cardamomo 6y ago
  Along those lines, I recommended listening to a recent Radiolab episode that dissects US police departments' lack of legal responsibility to ensure people's safety. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/no-special-duty https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/no-sp...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mellosouls 6y ago

Background to this discussed earlier in the year fwiw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23231237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23231237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236613

JPKab 6y ago

As I recall, she first became famous claiming that the dashboard was deceptive and hiding cases and deaths. That turned out to not be true, at all. It was just a very convenient story for journalists who, weirdly, have been obsessed with highlighting deaths in states run by Republicans, and simultaneously ignoring the same in blue states due to their narrative bias. Illinois has been practically ignored because of this bias, despite very bad numbers in the latest spike, while when Georgia first relaxed it's lockdowns in May, articles were published calling it "an experiment in human sacrifice". (Didn't see a surge in cases afterwards, since most Georgians are sane and just kept wearing masks while going places) While I always am against excessive police force, I also am fed up with journalists trying to dramatize things, and add credibility when it's not needed to any cause celebre. A person who builds dashboards isn't a data scientist BTW. Edit: I'm fully aware I'll be downvoted to oblivion for this post, but this person is a COVID alarmist, has pushed for excessive caution, and claims credentials and skills she doesn't have. I particularly resent her pushing for keeping elementary schools closed despite all of Europe and the vast majority of peer reviewed scientific literature saying otherwise. She's marketed herself as a renegade scientist all year, and dramatized all of it to great effect. Second Edit: Here she is in spring making the claim on Rachel Maddow that Florida was "hiding" hospitalization data. Absolutely untrue, and would have required conspiracy by public and private medical orgs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvzt6kGzHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvzt6kGzHw Neutral media outlets wouldn't touch the story.

ip_addr 6y ago
I would be interested in sources.
IvyMike 6y ago
> That turned out to not be true, at all. Do you have any citation on this? That would help your case a lot.
- JPKab 6y ago
  She made claims that Florida was hiding hospitalizations in May. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Jones#cite_note-17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Jones#cite_note-17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvzt6kGzHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csvzt6kGzHw This was patently untrue, and sensationalist. The absence of a massive, national scandal resulting in the impeachment of DeSantis proves that Florida wasn't hiding anything, months later. Her claims were always made without evidence, and were magnified by partisan actors.

chris_wot 6y ago

"All authorized users use the same user name and password." Oh, well done.

every 6y ago

You made The Gov look bad? Then yeah, you gonna get The Treatment. What did you expect?

kurthr 6y ago
I don't know... rule of law?
Vivtek 6y ago
Something better than a shithole country?

ogre_codes 6y ago

Lots of people jumping to conclusions one way or the other here, but keep in mind a few things. #1 The police had a warrant. That means they had to have a certain amount of evidence to present to a judge. "She is a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind" is probably not enough to get a warrant. Server logs with an IP address would hold up in court. #2 Pointing guns at clearly non-aggressive people and particularly kids is bullshit in general. The PD says she hung up on them and knocked on the door for 20 minutes. Maybe BS cover up, but if true, might explain the seemingly over-aggressive entry. Not jumping to conclusions, but sometimes decent people do stupid things.

giantg2 6y ago
It's possible the guns were not point at them but were in a low ready too.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  There is a video, I didn't watch it, I was just taking her comment about guns at face value.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    There's only 30 seconds, but I couldn't see the guns pointed at anyone unless they were off-frame.
    - Balgair 6y ago
      20 seconds in the video she posted here: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665 Officer is clearly pointing a firearm upstairs at the family.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        It doesn't show people upstairs in that video. Even if they were, they were doing it to clear the corner and then lowering the weapon after identifying them as non-hostile (or no person at all since they aren't on video).

eznzt 6y ago

What if this is false? Like, everybody here is quick to believe that someone raided a home and pointed guns at the faces of children. What if it is a lie? How do we know it's not beyond "oh yes it's the US so it makes sense"

tt433 6y ago
What if I had four legs and a tail? Edit for clarity: both are non sequiturs. You provide no justification for your spurious speculation. The article has a video.
dghlsakjg 6y ago
There's a video corroborating exactly what she says happened in the article that is linked. You can click the link and see for yourself.
- kipchak 6y ago
  I just watched the video, and I didn't see anyone have a gun pointed at them. I saw a cop holding a gun and another cop point his gun at the top of a staircase that's out of frame.

cwkoss 6y ago

In a just world, these cops would get a 10 year prison term for this. They had no reason to aim their guns at these citizens, especially children.

dehrmann 6y ago
Maybe they assume Florida Man lives there.

angry_octet 6y ago

Defund the police.

thinkloop 6y ago

> "complaint from the Department of Health (DOH) regarding unauthorized access to a Department of Health messaging system which is part of an emergency alert system, to be used for emergencies only" > "Ms. Jones refused to come to the door for 20 minutes and hung-up on agents. After several attempts and verbal notifications that law enforcement officers were there to serve a legal search warrant, Ms. Jones eventually came to the door and allowed agents to enter,"

thepasswordis 6y ago

I'm sorry but this is absurd. No the police did not "raid" her house. The showed up at her house and knocked on the door for 20 minutes until she eventually answered the door, and was arrested. They did go into her house with guns drawn, presumably because the other people inside were refusing to come out. To people who are shocked that they would do this: there are like a billion guns in The United States. The cops are doing this because the threat of somebody shooting them is real. To avoid this: when the police show up at your house, with a warrant, come outside unarmed. Part of the respect of due process is reciprocal. They have a warrant, which was granted to them by a judge. They aren't requesting to come into your house, they are ordering you to leave, as a part of a functioning judicial system. On this person's twitter account, she calls these people the "gestapo". I'm sorry, but no these are not the gestapo. The gestapo were a secret police used by the Nazis. They showed up at people's houses and killed them or sent them to death camps. They didn't use a warrant, politely knock on your door and try to call your phone for 20 minutes, and eventually take you to a jail cell where you would be granted a trial. I'm so fed up with the holocaust denial that these people engage in when they make these outrageous comparisons. The Nazis were NOTHING like contemporary America. NOTHING. They were loading human beings into train cars, sending them to industrial killing facilities, and killing them. Sometimes they would perform vivisections on them, they would be raped, and tortured, and starved to death if they waited long enough to be killed by the gas chambers. That is so, so, so far from anything that is happening in The US, and every time somebody tries to make one of these comparisons it only causes people to forget who the Nazis were, what they did, and how horrific it was. This woman's home wasn't raided, she was served a search warrant. These people weren't the gestapo, they were a civilian police force. Stop this.

beepboopbeep 6y ago

They drew guns on her and her kids. I'd say we should be outraged, but we're awash in outrage because the rule of law has become a one sided bludgeoning instrument for the government to suppress dissent. I can't wait to get out of here. To hell with this place any more.

jgalt212 6y ago

My laptop was not able to keep up with all the adtech running on this website.

_def 6y ago

Ahh, the land of the free!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dehrmann 6y ago

Media outlets... "Agents raid home of fired Florida data scientist who built COVID-19 dashboard" That implies it was raided because she was working on the dashboard, but it was raided because she allegedly accessed an emergency messaging system she should have no longer had access to. That headline primes you to be outraged. Could this have been revenge from the agency for what happened earlier this year? Maybe, but the article doesn't actually suggest that, and there's no evidence of it.

indigodaddy 6y ago

She says she has backups of the website data and files, but I wonder if she has backups of the evidence of state corruption that she said was also on her computer?

olliej 6y ago

Note that none of them were armed, she was cooperating, and the police came in with their guns drawn and pointed them at children. This is why police should be unarmed. They can't be trusted if they have guns on hand. I hope she sues those officers.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
Note that the video doesn't show the police pointing guns at any one, child or adult.
- olliej 6y ago
  I'm going to trust the women screaming about them pointing their guns at her children. But even if they just had them out, that's improper police work. You gun should only be drawn if the intent is to kill someone. They went in there with the intent of terrorising their victim. At no point did anyone demonstrate any threat to the officers, and so at no point should they have had their guns out. That's basic gun safety 101.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > I'm going to trust the women screaming about them pointing their guns at her children. Sure, you can do what you want but usually in law enforcement we like to see evidence presented for serious accusations. In fact that is how they obtained the search warrant for the screaming woman's residence, by showing evidence to a judge. > But even if they just had them out, that's improper police work. What are your qualifications for criticizing warrant service procedure? > You gun should only be drawn if the intent is to kill someone. Thats wrong in multiple ways, you don't seem to have the relevant background knowledge and experience to discuss this issue. Ask yourself how upset you would be with a police officer's use of deadly force if you learned that he had intended to kill the person he shot, rather than intending to save someone's life? > They went in there with the intent of terrorising their victim. You don't know that. You could just as easily believe that the woman refused to open the door for 20 minutes in order to antagonize law officers in the performance of their official duties. This is why we want people to support their statements with evidence instead of pretending to read minds. > At no point did anyone demonstrate any threat to the officers, and so at no point should they have had their guns out. Perhaps that would have been the case if they had responded to the officers in a timely manner. After a 20 minute wait, its possible that the individuals in the house have set up to attack the police when they enter. > That's basic gun safety 101. Hard to take lectures on gun safety from someone who hasn't demonstrated the relevant qualifications.

stickyricky 6y ago

Over Thanksgiving I shot a gun for the first time. An AR15 and a Glock. The AR was fun to shoot. Kind of nerve-wracking holding a weapon that could kill someone but fun none the less. The Glock was another story. It kicked like crazy and you could really feel the power of each shot in your arms. I didn't have any fun shooting it and I was a more than a little terrified I was going to hurt someone. Even when it was empty I had so much unease just setting it down on the table. Seeing those police officers enter someones home with their guns drawn and pointed was... a new feeling. I had an immense sense of dread just knowing how much power was behind those guns. The thought that someone was pointing it at children is just beyond my comprehension now. For what? Allegedly logging into a website? If shes guilty, go to jail, pay the fine, whatever. But the level of escalation to even walk through the front door with your gun drawn. The level of... I don't know... disrespect? Hatred? I can't even begin to describe to someone who doesn't know just how much force and how casually its being shown. Truly, these officers are a disgrace to Florida. The people who trained them are a disgrace. And the people who empower them to behave this way are a disgrace.

bigyikes 6y ago
I had an identical first-time experience a few months ago. For some reason I was expecting the Glock to be way easier and less terrifying than the AR, but it wasn't. It really blew my mind that I could aim directly at a human-sized target only 6 feet away and totally miss. Isn't the first thing they tell you about guns something like "don't point it at anything you don't intend to destroy"? How does a trained officer hear that two children are in the house and not immediately de-escalate? This is insanity.
- JamesLeonis 6y ago
  > How does a trained officer hear that two children are in the house and not immediately de-escalate? Unfortunately the police shoot kids fairly routinely, as lawyer Greg Doucette shows in this twitter thread. https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1336132653481865217 https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1336132653481865217

purrplexed 6y ago

It is a shame that Florida exists as a state.

ab_testing 6y ago

Warrant https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article247682356.ece/BINARY/FDLE%20search%20warrant%20affidavit.pdf https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article247682356.ece...

rambojazz 6y ago

Has anybody verified the original story where she says that she refused to manipulate data? Is that true? I'm not from the US and I don't know if "floridatoday.com" is a trusted source.

dusted 6y ago

or they could have changed the password, but that being 'murica, I guess dudes with ghuunz is a reasonable alternative

arendtio 6y ago

Actually, now I wonder how big the difference between the official and her numbers is. I looks like someone really want to silence her.

mieses 6y ago

There is another thread discussing the benefits of government licensing the title "data scientist" while in this thread we complain about the government persecuting a data scientist for apparently political reasons.

qwertox 6y ago

I wish that people with this mindset could be denied entry to Europe even for vacationing. They are aware of the context, they know that they are entering a house where also a husband and two children are living. What makes them believe that they pose any kind of threat? I'm not expecting them to ask for a coffee and discuss the matter and further proceedings at the table, but threatening everybody with a firearm like that?

tiktokdoc 6y ago
The chilling effect is the point.

crnkofe 6y ago

This must be one of the weirdest arrests I've seen. I would understand officers busting in guns drawn if they considered denizens dangerous. I would understand an arrest without guns drawn. But casually walking in with a gun (in case there's something to kill) makes this look like a psycho checking in. From my non-US perspective all these gun first arrests look crazy, especially for handling car speeding or non-violent offenders.

consultSKI 6y ago

#sad

bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

> Jones has had a history of run-ins with law enforcement in Florida. It involves multiple cases, all but a single case closed without a conviction. One is a robbery charge that was dropped when no evidence was produced for prosecution. The rest, including the active one, relate to Jones' personal life. She is currently facing one misdemeanor count of cyberstalking, stemming from what appears to be an acrimonious breakup. BPD case illegally accessing a state database to publish misleading covid agitprop? I'm shocked.

hzzap 6y ago

Land of the free? The US a has created its own reality and complicity enables it to persist. It made its bed, now lie in it or do something and stop whining.