It's not hurting them insofar as they can sell this kind of useless (in terms of catching terrorists) data collection to bureaucrats who will sign off on it. I

It's not hurting them insofar as they can sell this kind of useless (in terms of catching terrorists) data collection to bureaucrats who will sign off on it. I would argue that it is compromising their ability to sift the wheat from the chaff, when so much of their efforts and funding seems to be dedicated to adding to the latter. Plus, the inevitable outrage generated when these tactics became public is undeniably hurting their credibility and in the long term their ability to gather information.