Is the Federation an Empire?

[T'Girl]

Uh, no, sending covert operatives into the President's cabinet like that is a direct violation of the democratic process.

It's come up before in these discussions that Batman (not an official member of the body politics) had a camera and microphone in the Gotham City mayor's office, I believe he also had one in the police commissioner's office. He used this information to plan out his activities.

The monitoring in no way interrupted the "democratic process."

The system must be followed, not subverted.

Only if the system works, the Federation Council's initial response to the treat posed by the Dominion was to do nothing.

There are ALREADY checks and balances in place to prevent the abuse of power.

And we would know this how?