Hey, you, put down that smartphone and quit eavesdropping on the police:
There is a popular smartphone application that even the dumbest criminals are catching onto, and it could put law-abiding people in jeopardy. It turns your phone into a mobile police scanner, and it's illegal for most people to have.
Downloaded millions of times, it's one of the most popular smartphone applications. It allows users to listen in real-time to police scanners. Byron Fenoglio of Carmel uses it.
[. . .]
But the app, for Android and the iPhone, is running up against the law, at least in Indiana. Police don't want you to have it and state law say that the average person can't.
"The statute is that if it's being used as a police radio, that's illegal to have," said Det. Jim Johnson, Muncie Police.
By law, you can listen to a police scanner at home or in a business, but nowhere else. And there's a reason.
Maybe an attorney out there can straighten me out, but I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. Indiana Code 35-44-3-12 (here, just keep scrolling down), which seems to be the controlling statute, says it's a misdemeanor to possess or use something "capable of sending or receivng" those police broadcasts while committing a crime, to further the commission of a crime or to avoid detection of a law enforcment agency. I don't understand the language to mean you aren't allowed to just sit in your car and listen to the police scanner if you don't have anything nefarious in mind. As in so many areas, the debate here is whether we should ban everyone from having something that can be used for evil or only punish the people who do misuse it.
