Because criminals have a great track record of following the law. Or, in other words, that law is only intended to punish people for making the data available

Because criminals have a great track record of following the law. Or, in other words, that law is only intended to punish people for making the data available via other channels. It explicitly targets people like this guy for simply disseminating public information. A guy who wants to rob a house will not care that using a police scanner to help commit a crime is illegal. He's already robbing a house, by using the police scanner data he can reduce the risk of being caught by incurring the additional cost of the penalty for using the scanner _if he is caught_. It's a non-law. It doesn't stop the criminals and criminalizes innocent citizens. Plus, the people being the government, when is it illegal to tell people what you are doing?