It is a weird story. I do not think she is being targeted for speaking her mind or advocating a particular view of the COVID, the charges almost certainly are for accessing the non-public data she should not have accessed.
And some data is sensitive. For example, if someone was pulling private medical records and harassing or blackmailing another person with that information it would, to me, justify both the search and the potential arrest. It should not be the statistics about COVID -- that data is usually available to the public after some aggregation.
That said, the state response and the arrest warrant look very strange in this case; so strange that it smells of a personal vendetta (e.g., find a potential HIPAA violation and throw a book at her). I hope the state will clearly identify what the heck she is accused of accessing and why it is so damaging that the state resorted to its recent actions. My 2c.
> For example, if someone was pulling private medical records and harassing or blackmailing another person
I think it's highly unlikely that a state data analyst would have access to any private medical records. The Covid stats would have probably already been aggregated by the hospitals before they were sent to the state.
> find a potential HIPAA violation and throw a book at her
HIPAA is a federal law, so a violation of it wouldn't be prosecuted by the state of Florida.
And some data is sensitive. For example, if someone was pulling private medical records and harassing or blackmailing another person with that information it would, to me, justify both the search and the potential arrest. It should not be the statistics about COVID -- that data is usually available to the public after some aggregation.
That said, the state response and the arrest warrant look very strange in this case; so strange that it smells of a personal vendetta (e.g., find a potential HIPAA violation and throw a book at her). I hope the state will clearly identify what the heck she is accused of accessing and why it is so damaging that the state resorted to its recent actions. My 2c.
reply