I guess so, although they do operate out in the open. That's one of the things about Team Plasma that I like. They were able to get their message out in the Unova region, yet they managed to stay out of trouble for the most part. Everything sort of fell apart at N's Castle, but they were pretty successful. I recall seeing them in the manga and I remember how Ghetsis was able to convince trainers to free their Pokemon. I gotta respect a guy like him, since he has a way with words.
Oh god, it's the Pokemon world version of Hitler! Oh god... 0_0;;.
But, yeah, I actually quite prefer Team Plasma to many of the older organizations. Yes, at first they don't seem "evil", but then again, many of those other "medieval" organizations sure didn't seem like it at first. It's the stuff they hide from you that you ought to be worried about.
Team Rocket may have been you're typical criminal organization, but they were thwarted by a kid who decided to intervene.
Team Plasma sort of
gets around this, by having a "kid" of their own participate and do their bidding under false pretensions. Considering how far they're able to go (to the point where you have to fight them on their own turf) shows that they seemed to have figured out a successful strategy for world domination. Gotta hand it to Ghetsis, he may not have been as blunt as previous evil leaders, but damn, he knows what he's doing.
edit: I just realized this: having N as they're go to trainer for acquiring the legendary Pokemon is a stroke of genius that no other team has thought up. Think about that for a second...
/CL