I'm not going to come out on either side on this yet, still thinking about it.
But to anticipate those who will say, "do you think the bad guys are really dumb enough to use basic encryption techniques?" -
The 1993 (failed) World Trade Center bombers were caught because they went back to the rental truck company to try to collect the deposit on the "stolen" truck.
They have children, though, and some of those children are probably smart, and might train their old men to use Tarsnap via Tor in order to transmit encrypted messages/photos/other data anonymously and securely.
I'd imagine the NSA is concerned about future intelligent adversaries who have finesse, which is why they stay as far as possible ahead of the curve.
(I'm trying to come up with an alternative to our standard explanation of "the NSA does this because it's a soulless governmental machine that wants access to the world's information for corrupt purposes.")
The point was more along the lines of "intelligent people are generated by being born, so it's a matter of time before we face an intelligent adversary" rather than "young people are intelligent."
I'd imagine the NSA is concerned about future intelligent adversaries who have finesse
I'd imagine the NSA already has such adversaries. Note how difficult it appears to be to track down members Al-Qaeda, and how relatively well-informed bin Laden's hiding scheme was. There are doubtless also other less-publicized malicious operations of the same breed.
But to anticipate those who will say, "do you think the bad guys are really dumb enough to use basic encryption techniques?" -
The 1993 (failed) World Trade Center bombers were caught because they went back to the rental truck company to try to collect the deposit on the "stolen" truck.
So yes, some of them certainly are.