Be glad you have the freedom you have in the US. Here in the UK all emergency comms are TETRA (digital & encrypted) all we can pick up is some digital noise.
When things were still analogue there was the usual scaremongering from the authorities about how criminals COULD use scanners, though I never once heard of anyone being prosecuted. People who go about committing crimes don't tend to have the intelligence nor the time nor money to be listening to a scanner. I did twice twice hear things on the police radio than would have set alarms bells ringing amongst the powers that be, one was a racist comment, one was a vehicle accident caused by a reckless police decision.
I also heard of one case where the police were assisted by someone who heard something on the police radio over a scanner (though the police didn't know this).
Sadly those with power tend to want to keep the power to themselves, and assume everybody else is against them. They cannot understand that the vast majority of people who listen to scanners are law-abiding citizens sitting at home. They don't have the sense to realise that open communication has many benefits:
* You can communicate immediately with the public. (Having spent millions encrypting their radios so the public cannot hear was is going on, the police now spend money telling the public what is going on by using Twitter & Facebook)
* You make emergency personal more careful and professional about what they say (supresses racist and sexist comments).
* You engage better with the public, so they support you more.
It is human nature to remember bad things more than good things. Everytime you pass on something you heard on the scanner indiscreetly, you give them another bad thing to remember, and bring closer the day when they decide the public are a threat, rather than the people they are supposed to be serving.
