I do hope some of the individuals in the ATC forum are not reflective of the ATC community as a whole
Nice sweeping statement there. Care to expand on that. There has been countless threads on the legalities of scanners and listening to ATC frequencies. And if you're referring to certain comments in a thread over there at the moment, perhaps you should go back and read them AGAIN, and have a think about why they have been written.
I draw you to
this thread. Read the second and third lines. Says it all really. Something like that gets quoted in a paper, or a journalist thinks "Yeah, I've got a spare couple of hours, where's me scanner". And believe me, Halo wouldn't have the luxury of being able to contact them to put them straight (as in this case). Also, some controllers are very easy to recognise over the R/T, and it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to work out who they are.
They say a little information can be a dangerous thing.