alt Hacker NewsThere's a huge difference between the historical intent of that principle and the way that these days everyone in a given space can be exhaustively recorded and tracked 24/7.
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The availability of cheap sick is what makes the lack of privacy naturally different. There was a time where a police department could identify a suspect, talk to a judge, and then had that person followed for a while, dedicating multiple people to the efforts. With enough cameras and disk space, you now identify a person, and they were pre-followed for who knows how long.
Then again, it depends on where you are. One could have thought that finding a specific guy in NYC after you had him on camera at a given time would be easy, but they aren't so easy to locate immediately.
For sure, and I think a key change here is asymmetry. Previously in public I'd have a reasonable chance of knowing that somebody was watching or following me. Between cameras, networks, and high-capacity recording, that's all out the window.
I'd feel much better about if we heavily surveilled the use of surveillance. E.g., every access is recorded both in terms of metadata and in terms of generating video of whoever's looking. And if I'm in something they're looking at, I get notified (barring temporary legal exceptions for open investigations and the like).