Yes, it's a bad joke, but the propaganda works very well indeed. So much so that even back when some of this stuff was in the mainstream news (OK, not the details, but still), hardly anyone cared - because it was the "good guys" doing what "needed to be done" to "keep us safe", and anyone saying otherwise was a "nutter conspiracy theorist".

It's like with eating meat. People don't like animals being held in terrible conditions and butchered, but they deal with it by not thinking about it so they can eat a burger in peace.