What does it hurt aware of what is going on around you.
The problem is discriminating between the BS and reality. So far we have been absolutely inundated with BS, while the reality has been negligible.

Just look at the ridiculous "terror alert level" -- we have been at "significant risk" or higher since its inception in January 2003 - and NYC has never been below "high." How many actual terrorist attacks have happened here or even been attempted since then? Zero. How many cockamamie terrorist threats have been reported by the media? Hundreds if not thousands.
How does that kind of intel help?

Part of the reason no one "connected the dots" for 9/11 is because there were way too many dots and not enough people trying to connect them. So what have we done about it? Add more dots. Warrantless wiretapping, warrantless data-mining, no-fly lists, etc. Lots more dots, hardly any more people to connect them.

What matters is quality of information and just like the government has been adding low-grade information in the form of more and more "dots" -- fear-mongering is all about exaggerating the low-grade, but sensationalist information and ignoring the sensible.

The media loves to hype terrorism because danger sells ears and eyeballs, and the government loves to hype it because for them, its all CYA and empire building. The more people are afraid, the wider they open their wallets for the bureaucrats to reach into and build bigger bureaucracies.

You say you don't live in fear, but really, how can you justify giving any credence to "intel" about terrorist attacks on american schools -- an event with exactly 0 precedence in country and barely 1 case in recent history in the entire world -- when there are so many other risks like shootings, knifings, sexual assault, drugs, etc that happen every day? Is protecting against a Beslan-style attack really a wise use of our limited resources?