[kyboren]

> ... so seems like the current approach only impacts genuine photographers and concerned citizens.

I suspect this is also true for the FVEY dragnet surveillance.

Those terrorists who are vulnerable to such surveillance are unfit and will quickly be removed from the population, perhaps before having the opportunity to reproduce their broken tradecraft. The population of terrorists who remain adapts to evade the surveillance measures (for anecdotal data, see [1]). The result is the dragnet primarily entraps average, everyday citizens, and not terrorists.

[1]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/us-reconnaissan...

EDIT: I'd like to clarify that this is purely speculation. Also, even assuming my thesis is correct, this does not mean these surveillance measures are useless; on the contrary, such surveillance can push their communications to other surveillable channels (e.g. tactical radio that can be picked up by NRO sats), or simply deny terrorists the "cyber"/electromagentic domain, which impedes their reaction speed and effectiveness.