why can you buy police radios?
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In the USA, listening in on any radio frequency is generally legal, as long as you aren’t broadcasting. This stems from the 1934 Radio Communications Act. Radio is inherently not a private medium.
If the police are communicating using non-encrypted/scrambled radios, then it is legal to listen in. Further, the radio technology traditionally used by the police or fire services is pretty similar to other kinds of radio like shortwave. It is very easy to design a radio receiver for these channels, and completely legal to make or buy one. Broadcasting on these channels on the other hand would be a crime, unless you are a first responder trained and authorized to operate the radio properly.
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