The Imperial States would appear to an outside observer as an authoritarian, autocratic regime where freedom has died and been replaced with surveillance and control at almost every level of basic human life. This observation, however, would be considered flawed by the Directorship of the ATIS Council; as it lacks perspective. The perspective being, that such an autocratic, authoritarian state is only as 'bad' as the morality and vision of its autocrat, or those in the position of authority.
After the Unification Protocol of 4402 A.D, the old democratically elected government of the United Aquarian Systems, descendants of the transitionary TLA, and ultimately the UTN (Old Federation), was dissolved and replaced with a central governmental system overseen by a 'Council' of representatives of the former Civic System States; but these representatives only existed in government in an advisory role - something the Directorship of the Imperial Government was keen to keep veiled for some time after the deployment of the Universal Compliance Network. After of which, dissidents and those with seditious intent against the new state would be persecuted and ultimately neutralised by newly formed government agencies responsible for the compliance of the population.
However, the overall quality of life of everyday citizens in Aquarius drastically improved during the dawn of the Imperial Era; namely in the areas of crime and order, but also in the general wellbeing of citizens at an individual level. The primary driving force behind the reduction in crime rates to almost nil amongst the populations of Imperial Compliant Worlds was the ability for Law Enforcement, supported by Imperial Governmental Agencies such as the ISS.PCD to root out and apprehend troublemakers and would-be criminals before they even committed their acts against the Law. Ultimately, this would lead to a 'conditioning' of the population, based on the ability for the UCN's genetically 'bred' implantation to detect true intent and remove false positives, whereby people would generally learn over time that criminal behaviour - or indeed, intent - would not be tolerated and lead to their swift apprehension by Imperial Law Enforcement. The goal of the system would be to create a state with a population whereby the Imperial Law is conditioned as the 'norm' among newer generations - crime rates would drop along with arrest rates as the populations began to align their own views with that of the state.
Crime
However, depending on the severity of the transgression, a violating citizen or citizens could be detained by the Civic States' Law Enforcement branch, or the Imperial PCD directly. In the event of a minor transgression or 'negative intent'; the PCD (operating with data from the UCN directly) would issue a warrant for the violator(s) arrest to the local System's Law Enforcement. Though the FSF doesn't have direct access to the UCN, they are directly involved in the sharing of data made available by it via the PCD; of which they work closely to ensure order in the Civic States. In the case of a minor transgression; the individual or individuals are ordered, by law, to undergo a re-education program aimed at explaining, logically and empirically, of the benefits of the Imperial State and the problems (not only to the state, but to the individual) caused by seditious actions.
This program is mandatory but not abusive. The individual is given the opportunity to realign their views with the State over the course of up to a half-cycle (90-110 Lorentian Cycles). During this time their thought patterns and intent are carefully monitored by the PCD and ultimately, this data is used to determine if the individual has successfully passed re-education and can be released back into society. If genuine remorse, and positive intent, is detected, the individual will be allowed back into society. This program is almost 99% effective, since dissidents are neutralised at this stage, and the data is further used to help detect false positives by the UCN's Core Algorithm. If the individual continues to reject the Imperial Law; they will be neutralised immediately. Facing a trial before execution is considered to be wasteful and unnecessary as it is accepted that data from the UCN is 'realistically infallible'. The very small percentage of unnecessarily neutralised individuals (extremely low, likely under 1 in several million detainees) is accepted as 'margin of error'; and reflects the extremely pragmatic view of population compliance by the Imperial State. This system generally ensures would-be criminals are filtered from the population permanently.
In the case of a more severe transgression, Neutralisation can be authorised immediately, depending on the extent of the terroristic/extremist nature of the detainee. Such an authorisation requires the direct approval of the Directorship of the ATIS Council.
Feedback
One of the positive aspects to come from Imperial Law is the Public Feedback System. This unprecedently individual-focused system is made possible by the immense capacity for information processing (such as decision making) by the Directorship, including the ability to apply a 'personal' approach to decision making on a case-by-case basis. The Public Feedback System essentially allows individual citizens to submit feedback (such as complaints or compliments) to the Directorship, directly. The data is collected via the individual's personal network and verified with their biometric identity provided by the UCN genetic implantation. This data is used by the Directorship to form a general idea of what the population (on the order of trillions of individual human beings) like and what they dislike. This data is then compared to data from the UCN implant at the time of submission and verified.
One of the advantages of the Directorship's capacity for information processing with regards to governance is the ability for individual cases to receive scrutiny by the autocratic head of state directly; and in some cases, direct intervention for the betterment of the quality of life of every day citizens. The Directorship's Vision for humanity includes the preservation and prosperity of the species; it is not a little known fact that human beings are more prosperous if they are happy. The Feedback System also gives the population a method to 'get their voices heard' in a state without any real form of democracy at the top level of government (although local Civic State government representatives are still democratically elected if the result is 'compliant' with the Directorship.