San Francisco Has Blocked the Public from Listening to Most Police Broadcasts

To be clear, they are doing this because of a California DoJ mandate to encrypt traffic to prevent transmitting PII in the clear. San Jose did this not too long ago as well.

A family friend who was in the State Police used to send out a secret message (probably something like a special sign off tag) that his wife, who was listening on a police scanner, would hear and know that her hubby was safe, coming home, and to get dinner ready. Great way to keep the couple connected during worrying times, sort of like video chats during military deployments.

I don’t know whether police nowadays carry around cell phones they can use that deprecate their scheme.

AFAIK, listening in on police radio traffic hasn't been possible in the UK for over a decade for similar encryption-related reasons, following the switch to Airwave[1].

[1] https://www.airwavesolutions.co.uk/the-service/emergency-ser...