I love this time of year. The NCAA tournament is the second most exciting shared national athletic event after the World Series. Good luck to Gonzaga’s (men and women) teams, both of which are playing into the second weekend.

As Lina Kahn writes in The Washington Monthly, when one must actually face its accusers in court, in front of a jury of peers, and subject to an open and public trial, justice under our system gets done.  Our constitutionally-based system of civil jurisprudence is not perfect, but its probably the best in the world.  We are not allowed to opt out.  But corporations can with language in their service contracts, licenses to enter their stores, owners manuals and the like.

Corporations argue (and convinced the Supreme Court in Citizens United – 130 S. Ct. 876) that they are people.  Well, you and I cannot immunize ourselves from suit and require that any claims against us be made via private arbitration.  But that is what corporations do.

Should they be entitled to have it both ways?  What do you think?

Europe’s top “supreme” court ruled on Tuesday in favor of a Spanish man who asked Google to remove links to his home’s repossession in 1998. The case pitted the rights of persons’s information to “be forgotten” versus the right of free speech. In law, important rights often come into conflict and it can be difficult to choose which should be paramount. For example, the right of the public to observe a criminal or civil trial (i.e. openness of the judicial system) versus the privacy rights of parties and witnesses who are called to testify.

In the Spanish case, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled Google can be required to remove data that is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed.” The court said the rights of people whose privacy has been infringed outweighed the general public interest.

This will make things difficult for Google and other search engines, as it will cost some money to search out such sensitive information. Google also argued they simply point to other information, and do not create or store it.

The European Commission proposed in 2012 that people should have the “right to be forgotten” on the internet. This proposal was watered down by the European Parliament last year in favor of a “right to erasure” of specific information.

The ruling does not bind Google in the U.S. but I think it is a harbinger of things to come.

The proposal needs the blessing of the 28 European Union governments before it can become law. Google, Facebook and other internet companies have lobbied against such plans, worried about the extra costs.

In California, a state “eraser” law was recently passed, which will require tech companies to remove material posted by a minor, if the user requests it. The new rule is scheduled to take effect in 2015 and will likely face court challenges.

In the days before the internet, the common understanding was that once something was published, it was “forever.”  Compared to the internet, this was never true.  Newspapers are thrown out or fade over time.  One looking for information can still go to a library and look at old newspaper clippings on microfilm.  It takes some effort and the searcher must have the motivation to seek out the information.  But the modern internet search is so easy – available to everyone with a smartphone or other device, that it has the effect of keeping all information, including “bad” stuff, up front and easily accessed.  So from a private person’s perspective, I like this ruling.  On there other hand, won’t it also erase the damaging or compromising information of less sympathetic entities like polluters, criminals, political cronies (donors, lobbyists) and the like?  Its too early to tell, but this is a fascinating development in my opinion.

The Washington Post had a good article on “the shutdown” of the US government last week– i.e. the Republican’s current refusal to pass debt increase or budget bills without a “negotiation” of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) or other pending financial issues.  The article by Dylan Matthews discusses what I have been pondering as of late.  Namely, how is it that a house member, from a single district in Ohio, one of 435 members of the House of Representatives, can go toe-to-toe with a nationally elected and constitutionally selected representative of one of the three branches of our government (i.e. The President), and shut down the entire US Government?  It seems preposterous and exposes a flaw in our system.  To be sure, setting up a government that both respects the wishes of the majority, and prevents the steam-rolling of legitimate but minority-held positions, would be extremely challenging.  They got it right, for the most part.  But did the forefathers blow it on this point?  Did they assume nobody who loves this Country and is a member of Congress would act so anti-American?  Frankly, I fear for the future of our republic.

It simply will not work; allowing a single person, who is not elected nationally, but who happens to be the speaker of the House, to be able to personally decide which bills are brought to the floor for a vote.  It is said by the media that if an up or down vote on a finanical resolution with no string attached were allowed, the shut down would end immediately.  Instead, the Speaker refuses to act, and holds previously passed laws “hostage” even after the Supreme Court has deemed them lawful and constitutional.  The severity of this shutdown will be immense, and it shows that the economy and vitality of this Country come second to party politics.  Sad.

As Mr. Matthews notes in his article:

“It is important to be very clear about what’s scary here. It’s not any one instance of disagreement or brinksmanship. It’s the emergence of the sustained, structural problems that have harmed other countries with similar presidential systems. To believe that the U.S. won’t eventually face terrible consequences from the mixture of polarized parties in a presidential system is to believe that the clear trends in our political system will, for reasons that are currently unclear, reverse themselves. That would be nice, but as they say, hope is not a plan. And the problems of our politics have something of a built-in defense mechanism against meddlesome voters trying to impose sanity on the system.”

Shares of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft rose 7.3 percent to $34.75 at the close in New York, for its biggest gain since April 2009. The stock has gained 30 percent this year and is still trading below its close at the end of 2007. This all happened after Microsoft announced the pending retirement of its chief, Steve Ballmer.