New York tripod trouble

To my absolute horror, I found that the city of New York
might not be the best City to do a photoshoot in…
When Kristian and I take photos we mostly go for the scenery shots.
You know, tripod and long exposure. And therein lies the problem!
A few days ago, one of my colleagues warned me that the city of New York
had tightened up the rules regarding the usage of tripods and other camera gear.
I did some snooping around on the web and found quite a few articles like this one
After a while I found the NYC mayor’s office website with a statement regarding this issue…
Since my legal English needs a little brush up,
I had some trouble figuring out just what we can and can’t do.
But it seems that as long as you don’t put your Manfrotto Superclamp on a street sign
and make sure that pedestrians don’t trip over your tripod, you should be home free.
As a tourist that is.
Anyways, I sent an email to the US embassy in Denmark in the hopes
of getting a clear idea of the rules, so we don’t get into trouble
when taking a long exposure photo of the yellow cabs on Broadway,
or try to capture the the sunset behind the Brooklyn bridge.
My secret thoughts on the subject:
It seems that the reason for these rules is that the mayor’s office worry
that tripods with SLR-cameras may be used in a terrorist act…
1) Wouldn’t a terrorist try to blend in as much as possible?
(tripods and big lenses usually make heads turn)
2) Two words… “Google Earth”
(You can get fairly precise measurement from it)
Am I missing something here…?

“It seems that the reason for these rules is that the mayor’s office worry that tripods with SLR-cameras may be used in a terrorist act…”
Funny reason… Has anyone ever seen a print of a snap taken by an Al Qaeda member? Unfortunately it seems that we have came to a time when having absolutely no proof of something means it does exist.
thanks for great informations It’s a wonderful