Stopping Terrorism

Somehow I don't think that stopping people from taking pictures is going to stop terrorism or really have any effect at all. I realize of course that it's very difficult to analyze each and every precaution that governments take in possibly counteracting terrorism and judge their validity and effectiveness but with the wealth of information that's available to everyone via the Internet, especially for photos (Flickr, Google, etc) how could a photograph of anything in a public place provide any more useful information for a terrorist than the act of actually going there in person and taking a look? They could bring the whole cell, hang out, take notes, make drawings and probably bring computers. The Police wouldn't think twice. What about Google Maps? They don't even have to send anyone out to the location to take photos. You can just punch in the location, go to street view and have a look. In the least you'd have a satellite photograph for reference. Sure you can't know that those map pictures are current but you could certainly verify that easily enough.

The only effect this has is it makes citizens and tourists feel uncomfortable and unsure about what's safe to do in public. We have been talking about taking a trip to England, it would be our first, but it would seem that at this point if we did go there's a good chance we wouldn't be able to take photographs of ourselves, and certainly not photographs of the buildings themselves, at any famous public location without someone keeping watch for police. Just the same as if we were trying to rob a store, right? Except we wouldn't actually be guilty of anything.