Incredibly sometimes things are different because of different circumstances and the laws we've all taken part in constructing (when we bother to organize and vote of course).

You're an unregulated, unsupervised, and frankly unknown factor with no real accountability through any realistic chain of command to the results of the democratic process. However far from your imagined ideal, cops are.

There's some public interest in noting and publishing observations of police (they appeared to be working while they were being paid, for instance).

The same is at least less true for private citizens that are not being accused of a crime.

Why are you assuming that the rest of us are fine with mass surveillance and authoritarianism? Are you a rationalist?