Github user Randgalt commented on the issue:
https://github.com/apache/zookeeper/pull/136
re: ACL and recursive watches...
ZooKeeper.exists() does not check ACLs so I assert that the current
behavior of this PR doesn't violate the current behavior. i.e. in ZooKeeper you
can have knowledge of the existence of every ZNode in the database irrespective
of ACL. I can update the docs to make this clear however if people think that
that's needed.---
