Indeed it is sensationalism. And it highlights the fact that we're expending far too much effort and money on handwavy "solutions" to handwavy "terrorism."
> Obviously our efforts have been so fruitful that terrorism has been wiped out.
If that's the perception, maybe we need to direct the same effort to the now more serious problem of police shootings of citizens, so those can be wiped out to the same low level as the terrorism threat has been reduced to.
It's hard to say, generally it doesn't appear to be the case but there's a possibility this information is secret to the public. But take the NSA for example, it has been looked into a lot by government (e.g. congress) itself behind closed doors and it seems to be pretty useless so far.
> The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) also issued a report in which it stated, “we have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which [bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act] made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.”