United States v. Esquivel-Rios

GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.

Garbage in, garbage out. Everyone knows that much about computers: you give them bad data, they give you bad results. There was a time when the enforcement of traffic laws depended on officers lying in wait behind billboards watching cars flow past. Today, officers nearly as often rely on distant computer databases accessed remotely from their dashboards, stopping passersby when the computer instructs. But what if the computer turns out to be a good deal less reliable than the officer’s eagle eye? What if the computer suggests you’ve broken the law only because of bad…