No its a mentality that has been in corporate for decades. The best way for IT to not get in trouble is to lock everything down and define strict policies that prevent any ambiguity and define peoples work requirements in strict categories. This used to be easier with the advent of timeshared terminals but the advent of desktop computing caught them off guard. Now they have done their best to seize back control so much so that it strangles companies to death(as faster moving startups don't have this problem and innovation at the big companies stall)

It was a joke/sarcasm.

Well I am not joking. This has been their M.O. for as far as I can remember. It really sucks as I work for a company that is being strangled to death by IT locking down every opportunity for a developer to get anything done and countless meetings where nothing gets accomplished.