If fraud occurs at my business and is undetected, is it not a crime?
Politically, I am against drug prohibition. Legalize it all, and demand warrants for non-visible spectrum imagery of homes. But the idea that a crime isn't a crime if no one notices just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Fraud can be detected with perfectly normal well understood investigation techniques. No literally peering through walls is required. It is an important difference because fraud investigation techniques were conceivable when the laws we run our legal system with, laws put in place to protect us from it, were created.
Nobody is proposing we deploy these sorts of technologies to patrol for these crimes. Once we are reasonably certain that a particular crime has occurred, break out the UAVs for all I care. And get a warrant first. That is how the system was intended to work; if you breach that intention you breach the implied contract citizens have with their society.
Any crime should have an effect that is noticeable in a reasonable way. If there are absolutely no other methods of even determining if a crime has happened, then it is not a crime. A crime must have an effect, and an effect is noticeable. If there are other methods, the use those.
Regarding murder, you suggest "if someone is missing, start an investigation." Of course, the error in your logic is that we do have evidence of drug crime -- and plenty of it. There is no question that Alameda county is full of grow-ops, which produce drugs for the surrounding region. I know, because I live here. There are many, many busts every year. Mountains of evidence.
The reason to limit this sort of investigation is found in the 4th amendment, and it is more than adequate when applied here. Kyllo v. United States is very clear on this point.
My point, stated succinctly: If a law cannot be enforced without violating the 4th amendment, it is not a legitimate law.
Alternative expression of my point: "When the police cannot catch you legally, they are not permitted to catch you anyway"
Application of my point: If grow houses cannot be found without using drones, which violate the 4th amendment (or should), then grow houses should be legal. Bans on grow houses should only exist if there are legal ways of finding them. If there are legal methods of finding grow houses, than illegal methods should not be employed. Of course grow houses can be found without drones, so no drones should ever be employed.
The purpose of this rule of thumb (notice that I never claim that this principle could be effectively coded into law) would be to provide the population with an effective way of telling Sheriffs to "Fuck off" when they say "We need to violate your 4th ammendment rights to enforce this law.".
They could be missing already, or be unregistered kids, or recently arrived unregistered migrants. Not everyone who is murdered is noticed missing. Also, very few of the people who are missing have been murdered.
Noting that the criminal or (now deceased) victim observed the crime is neither useful nor insightful.
