Originally Posted by franklin_m

Registration is a necessary administrative requirement that then can serve as a basis for additional action. Just like laws on obstruction of justice. In and of themselves, they do nothing to prevent crime. What they do however is provide a basis for starting action when a law is broken. It works like this: If the Feds suspect something, they will notify an individual, organization, company, etc. that they are the subject of an investigation and direct them to preserve all documents, communications, emails, etc. From that moment forward, if someone destroys something, it's a slam dunk felony charge. You want to see it in action, remember the BP engineer that destroyed text messages on his phone? Yep. Obstruction of justice.

So, now fast forward to someone who does something with a MR that results in something serious to an aircraft. If they're fortunate enough to find the operator, and they're getting smarter and smarter about how to do that, if they find he's not registered - guess what? Slam dunk holding charge. Now they can start negotiating for a plea bargin, perhaps use it to find others who might have known about the dangerous operation, etc.

If the registration requirement wasn't there, it all gets much more difficult.