Newbie legal/detection questions:

I have been lurking here for a long time but haven't posted here
because it's hard for me to post from work. Now I'm on vacation.

Anyhow, I live in the New York metropolitan area and bought a scanner right
after 9/11 because I want to know more about what's going on.

Questions:

- Just how ferocious is the law prohibiting people from sharing what
they've heard over the scanner? In reality, can I tell my spouse about
interesting calls that I've heard? If I were a crime reporter, could I
legally call the police PR people to ask them about an incident I
learned about while monitoring the scanner? (Technically, of course, that
would be a form of sharing information with a third party.)

- I have a Radio Shack PRO-94 scanner. Just in case the authorities ever
do outlaw scanners, does my scanner actually emit some signal while
operating that could alert authorities to the fact that I'm using it?
To people "scanning for scanners," does a scanner appear to be different
from a regular radio or a regular television set?