The app is easy enough to use. It includes a search by location. You can also save channels on your favorites list for quick recall. There is a premium version as well. The premium version removes advertising and gives you access to days of archived radio transmissions. It still has the occasional bug. There is another Police Scanner app that uses Broadcastify as a source. It works pretty well too. Police Scanner by Logicord is one of the more stable police scanner apps. This app boasts over police, fire, rescue, and other radio feeds.
Some of the features include the ability to listen over slower Internet connections, the ability to find feeds based on your GPS location, and it supports international feeds as well. The interface could be better. Police Scanner X is another decent police scanner.
It contains thousands of scanner stations to sift through. It also has a resume function for faster access. The law, it turns out, is quite literally all over the map on whether it's legal to use scanner apps on smartphones.
An earlier version of this post misspelled Benjamin Wright's name. It is legal to own a police scanner radio; on that, pretty much everyone agrees. Where things get sticky is when you take it out of your home. The problem, police and legal experts say, is that if you have it with you — in other words, if it's a mobile police scanner — then you can use it the way Matthew Hale is accused of: to aid in the commission of some other crime.
At least five states — Indiana among them, along with Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota and New York — make it illegal to use a mobile police scanner without a license from the Federal Communications Commission i. At least seven others, somewhat tautologously, make it illegal to use a mobile scanner explicitly in the commission of another crime.
In all of those states, a bewildering array of conditions and exemptions may apply: Is the radio "installed" in a vehicle or simply carried? Is it just a relay for a fixed radio? Perhaps you're a journalist on assignment — if so, you're all set in Indiana and Florida, where you're otherwise supposed to have an FCC license or the cops' permission. The rest of the states don't clearly address the issue at all.
That's because the laws were written in an era when "police scanner" meant a bulky box costing several hundred dollars that you could buy only at Radio Shack.
They didn't envision a time when anyone could push a button, download an app and begin listening in immediately. The apps don't even turn your phone into a true scanner. Instead, they receive feeds from police, fire and EMS channels all over the country, streamed over the Internet — and over your cellular network — to your device. You don't need to be in radio range, or even in the same state, for them to work.
Another court in another state will rule it does. Until then, unwritten laws on obstruction of justice could apply, and that could be bad news for developers and customers alike, because "that is a general common law that doesn't have to be written down in any legislation," Wright said. It's not just protesters, or those looking to avoid them, who may want to listen in on police communication. Wong has heard from people who've used his app to avoid tornadoes, or from partners and spouses of emergency personnel who use his apps to keep tabs on their loved ones, he said.
During times of heightened police activity, the general public could benefit from hearing what's going on with police, if only to avoid a traffic jam, said John Banzhaf, a professor of public-interest law at George Washington University in Washington, D. He added, "There is a general public interest in things being open, whether those are things like courts, the legislative functions, or policing.
In recent years, some police departments have moved to encrypt their radio communications, citing the safety of officers as a reason. But just in recent days, public listening to police scanners has revealed some questionable banter. Police in New York were overheard talking about plans to "shoot" a crowd and to "run over" a crowd, Gothamist reported Monday.
In Chicago, voices on a police scanner reportedly discussed allowing a shooting to play out and not intervene. Both police departments have said they're investigating the transmissions. Concerns about use of force against protesters.
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