"police radio mobile application" in Indiana legislation

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kevin.r

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Greetings,

I thought the scanner community might want to be aware of some draft Indiana legislation related to scanner apps. See 2019 Indiana Senate Bill 240: Terrorism link below:

Senate Bill 240 - Terrorism

I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on the Internet, so I'm not going to attempt to summarize the bill because I'd probably get something wrong. If you are interested in knowing details, the full bill text is located at the above link. It's lengthy, but you can start by searching for "police radio mobile application" in the full text search.
 

bill4long

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To quote the digest:

Defines "police radio mobile application" as an application installed on a mobile device that allows a person to listen to the contents of traffic carried on police radio frequencies. Provides that a person who possesses or uses a police radio mobile application: (1) while committing a crime; (2) to further the commission of a crime; or (3) to avoid detection by a law enforcement agency; commits unlawful use of a police radio, a Class B misdemeanor.
 

ten13

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Defines "police radio mobile application" as an application installed on a mobile device that allows a person to listen to the contents of traffic carried on police radio frequencies. Provides that a person who possesses or uses a police radio mobile application: (1) while committing a crime; (2) to further the commission of a crime; or (3) to avoid detection by a law enforcement agency; commits unlawful use of a police radio, a Class B misdemeanor.

The bottom line is, if you get locked up for "terrorism," or any other crime, and you have an app on your phone, you'll get charged with that too, the presumption being that you used the app to "further the commission of the crime."

A lot of states have that "qualification" in their "police radio" laws (using it in a crime), which, by design, is to (for lack of a better term) "isolate" the casual listener from the criminals.
 

iMONITOR

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The bottom line is, if you get locked up for "terrorism," or any other crime, and you have an app on your phone, you'll get charged with that too, the presumption being that you used the app to "further the commission of the crime."

A lot of states have that "qualification" in their "police radio" laws (using it in a crime), which, by design, is to (for lack of a better term) "isolate" the casual listener from the criminals.

That's correct, Michigan has that as well. It's not been abused, and I'm not aware of any amateur radio operator or scanner owner running into any problems with police when possessing or using a scanner radio.
 

GTO_04

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Thanks for the headsup! I follow the IGA legislation and somehow I missed that one. Good catch on your part!

GTO_04
 

INDY72

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At least they did NOT add this to the scanner law... Would be funny as all get out to need a ham ticket to use your app on your phone! If this was CA they would do that kind of thing.
 

cognetic

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Makes one wonder though, even if a licensed amateur radio operator... about the threshold for "crime".
Would 5, 10, 15, 15+, any mph over the PSL be a factor in speed enforcement?
 

GTO_04

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Makes one wonder though, even if a licensed amateur radio operator... about the threshold for "crime".
Would 5, 10, 15, 15+, any mph over the PSL be a factor in speed enforcement?

Technically, speeding is an infraction, not a crime so in general it would probably not apply. If the speed was high enough for reckless driving though it would probably exceed that threshold.

At any rate, the only way they can prove you have the app, wouldn't they have to search your phone? And to search your phone without your consent, would they not need a warrant? This raises more questions.

GTO_04
 

cognetic

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To clarify... scanner app aside and leaving "infraction vs crime" out for a moment.... Hypothetically during a speed enforcement stop, I was thinking more about an obvious piece of scanning hardware (scanner) that is visually available with a glance in the window. Personally, I cannot recall ever hearing about an issue per se; hence, speculation on risk in such a scenario in my previous post.
 
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