I think stories like these reinforce the idea that it's okay to develop certain technologies or adopt certain policies or create infrastructure to stop the bad guys.

For example, there's a reason most justifications we've seen regarding mass surveillance or automatic recognition systems are boiled down to two things:

stopping harmful material

terrorism

Of course, they take a topic that you wouldn't even dream or arguing against and using that against you.

If they wanted to erode our freedoms to stop harmful material I'm sure most would likely accept that outcome as I feel they have done (AI/facial tech)