Technology is inherently subversive, in that it can undermine established authority.

It did so during the Industrial Revolution, by creating the bourgeoisie and heralding the decline of the landed aristocracy.

And it is hardly fanciful to suggest that it is doing so again through the internet and social media, which have been credited for playing a central role in the so-called ‘Arab spring’.

The challenges technology presents are not merely political, of course.

Only a month ago we reflected on the threat to the integrity of the jury system posed by misuse of new media.

And indeed, the lord chief justice is alive to this threat.

Yet even Lord Judge could not have envisaged the degree to which the internet would threaten to bring the law into disrepute during his tenure.

‘This weekend Twitter mocked the English courts,’ was one media commentator’s take on the events that we might describe as ‘Giggsgate'.

The rule of law itself is threatened when, as the attorney general put it, enforceability of court orders and injunctions is jeopardised by the internet.

It is welcome (if somewhat tardy) therefore that a cross-party committee of senior MPs and peers is to examine the law surrounding privacy and rules for reporting parliament.

But they have their work cut out – it’s going to be devilishly hard to stuff the genie back into the bottle.