Today, as software eats the world, we allow "proprietary knowledge" to enforce laws. If not make the laws, we at least allow black box code to enforce them. Arguably, this is the same thing.
As "AI" progresses, this seems like it could only get worse, and yet more acceptable.
This could be facial recognition, or social media metrics, or otherwise.
Is it realistic, possible, and necessary to require all software which is used by government to be open source as it is an extension of the law?
I am slightly conflicted. I believe that open source is not a panacea. For example, bio-weapons should not be open sourced.
However, I would argue that we will regress as a species if law, and its enforcement, is not open.
Maybe this is one of the more complex questions that we could consider.
What are your thoughts?
What benefits it brings to society if to restrict some but not other parties from researching bio-weapons? For example, would you be happy if some domains of Physics/Mathematics is banned for everyone except some US students of some limited set of universities?
I'm not sure what you are referring to - do you mean law enforcement using specific tools to decide whom to investigate, or are you talking about actual arrests?
Maybe some examples of what you are thinking of would help?