By Rebekah Jones
What a year.
Each year, I think (hope) the new year will be better than the last.
Maybe if I start wishing for a worse year, there will be nowhere to go but up.
Let’s start at the beginning.
After 18 months and an entire Congressional campaign of being Twitter banned (for “over-sharing” this story by the Miami Herald), my account – and its nearly 400,000 followers – was restored just before Christmas 2022.
My husband and I began looking for jobs outside Florida, knowing that our safety wasn’t assured once my lawyers filed our whistleblower complaint (which they did on March 13, 2023 – exactly three years from when I launched the Florida Department of Health’s COVID-19 data and surveillance dashboard).
Meanwhile, I began writing more – both on here and for my podcast.
Contacts inside Matt Gaetz’ office laid out how the Department of Justice had failed to properly investigate the embattled Congressman, and I published their intel with my own research in my most-viewed substack post to date. Click here to read “Matt Gaetz: Boy, Interrupted.”
I also began working on a series of stories investigating Ron DeSantis’ very sordid and secretive past, as well as the disinformation agents he brought on to cover it up.
When the Chinese spy balloons and UFO panic ensued, I found myself on the news explaining why we were not, in fact, being invaded by Martians, and was introduced to the most entertaining man in Congress – Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett.
After three years of delays, stalling and obstruction by the state, my lawyers filed my whistleblower and retaliation lawsuit against the Florida Department of Health.
One week later, police showed up to my door to ask my son about memes he had shared in a group message on SnapChat. We let him speak to them about the three memes – two of which were popular on the internet at the time and the third was a still from a music video – which was recorded by home security system.
The cops chalked it up to “teenager stuff” and all parties said my son wasn’t a risk to his virtual school program, partly because the school was, well, virtual.
The state published videos and photos of my son – both through their official Twitter accounts and through their surrogates – despite that information being confidential under Florida law. Two local, far-right outlets followed their lead.
We fled Florida in June - as soon after they arrested him that we could find a place to live and jobs. Moving cost all of our money, and the following few months were the most stressful of the last several years (and, yes, that’s considering the raid).
Not long after we moved, we finished fundraising for Josh Fox’s upcoming documentary “Whistleblower,” currently scheduled for release this coming spring.
I was honored with a series of awards for my work as a whistleblower and advocate, enshrining my story into the history of American whistleblowers within that community, as well as the United Nations under revisions to Article 19.
Florida lost a major lawsuit over hiding COVID data in October.
Today marks one week since my son earned back his freedom from the state of Florida. There was a period where we were terrified that under the state’s vague “online threats of terrorism” law, my son would either have to plead guilty or be convicted. He did neither.
A LOT of other “stuff” happened in the interim, which you can catch up with here through substack, on my podcast, or on any of the following social media sites:
Facebook @ GeoRebekahJones (barely use, but I do try to cross-post everything from Insta at a minimum)
Special to Big Mouth Media from Whistleblower News - Rebekah Jones.
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