Wireless Broadcast of Identity Information

I found the charger to my old handheld Marine radio this past weekend, plugged it in and charged it up. I then did some channel surfing to see what I could pick up. I was pretty astonished when I hit the police channel.

I heard full names, license numbers, license plates, rap sheet info, etc.

It got me thinking that what if I wanted to write down some of that information, Google some people, get additional information, would it be enough to create a new identity or steal theirs? Which one would I choose? Surely not the one with the guy who had 3 priors for driving to endanger, working on his fourth, with no license but to a guy driving a Porsche with a clean record from CT, now that could be fun.

I have several friends in Law Enforcement and I intend to ask them about this issue - are they contributing to the release and possible theft of personal information? Granted it's public information (criminal records) but is it readily available to most of us? What could be done with it? They probably have to wait until someone does something with the information to commit a crime before they act.

I suspect it's a case of balancing good vs evil - so be careful where you get pulled over...

Mark