The Life of the Panopticon

Foucault argues that the invention of the Panopticon brought into being a whole new type of society, a transition from a society of spectacle to one of surveillance. We now live in the "panoptic mahine" by which we are disciplined and by which we discipline others. In reading about the Panopticon I am often struck by fear of this impersonal "all-seeing eye", yet I remember that the Panopticon is not to be controlled by any one individual, but is supposed to be open to the public: "any member of society will have the right to come and see with his own eyes how the schools, hospitals, factories, prisons function" (p.207). There is admittedly something terrifying about the feeling that one is always being watched, but does the fact that surviellance is regulated/monitored by the public serve to alleviate some of these fears, or is it perhaps even more troubling to think that we are all engaged in policing one another?