By now most British internet users will be familiar with the YouTube video of Emma West expounding her controversial views about the ethnic makeup of the UK on a South London train. The video appears to have been shot on a mobile phone and quickly "went viral". Fascinating how what once would have been a purely local issue, a story to amuse colleagues with at work, became - through the power of these new technologies - a national news story and a case for the judiciary. For good or ill, big brother is certainly watching us, and yet with our personal recording equipment to hand, we ourselves are all the means of that surveillance.
