ORLANDO, Fla. — Rebekah Jones, the former Florida Dept. of Health data manager who accused Gov. DeSantis's administration of trying to manipulate COVID-19 figures, is suing the head of the Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement and two agents for a raid on her home earlier this month, in which her computer was seized.

In the suit, Jones claims "the basis of the warrant was a sham to punish" Jones for speaking out against the DeSantis administration and its handling of COVID-19 data, and was a violation of her First, Fourth, and 14th amendment rights.

• RELATED: Read the lawsuit (.pdf)

FDLE agents raided Jones's home on December 7 on a search warrant in connection with an investigation into an anonymous message sent out over a Florida Health Dept. system that encouraged people to speak out against the way COVID-19 data was being handled by the Florida government.

FDLE agents said the message was linked to Jones's IP address and used that as the basis for the search warrant. 

However, in the lawsuit, Jones's and her attorneys say IP addresses can be spoofed and pointed to numerous reports that show the message was sent over a system that utilized log-in information that was widely and even publicly available. The suit says that since the log-in info was widely and publicly available, it cannot even be considered a crime to use it to access the system, and therefore FDLE applied for the search warrant in bad faith.

Jones denies she sent the message.

Jones helped create the COVID-19 dashboard still in use by the Florida Dept. of Health. She says she was fired in May after talking to her boss about filing a whistleblower complaint regarding the handling of COVID-19 data, which she said was not being presented truthfully. 

In response, a former spokesperson for Gov. DeSantis described Jones as insubordinate.

"Rebekah Jones exhibited a repeated course of insubordination during her time with the Department, including her unilateral decisions to modify the Department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors. The blatant disrespect for the professionals who were working around the clock to provide the important information for the COVID-19 website was harmful to the team," said former communications director Helen Ferre. 

Since her firing, Jones has maintained her own dashboard and garnered statewide and national attention. 

Jones says the December raid was intended to take away her data and reporting infrastructure, and "silence her online speech by confiscating her computer and to discover her confidential sources and other information by seizing her cell phone."

Jones also complains in the suit that seizing her computer took away her freelance business and livelihood. Moreover, she says FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen's decision to release body camera video, along with other documents that had her personal information unredacted led to harassing guards and hate mail. She says she has had to hire an armed guard and her family is even looking into moving out of the state.  

Jones's lawsuit also says her original whistleblower complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations is on the verge of going to court.

Although Jones's lawsuit doesn't target Gov. DeSantis, she does link the suit to DeSantis in the complaint, accusing him of vitriolic attacks on her in the media, and accusing FDLE's commissioner of trying to remain on DeSantis's good graces by silencing her.

After the raid, DeSantis faced heated questions during a roundtable discussion on mental health. He insisted that calling the incident at Jones's home a raid was misinformation and attacked the media for feeding a narrative. 

"They were serving valid process in accordance with the laws and Constitution of the United States and the state of Florida," DeSantis said. 

He also referred to Jones as having "issues."