The September 2013 article UNLEASHED AND UNACCOUNTABLE:The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority is quite informative and describes the “Disruption” policy. The continued use of this tactic by the FBI is a more than a little disingenuous because according to the FBI’s own website the COINTELPRO tactics have been officially abandoned-yet here they are openly admitting to using them in their own policy documents(obtained by the ACLU).
The “disruption” tactics are simply police harassment on a grand scale. Multiple agents and low level provocateurs follow such a target in the most conspicuous manner possible by both law enforcement and civilian cars with the hope that the person either breaks psychologically from the stress and makes a criminal error or actually commits an assault-vehicular or otherwise.

These are practically the same tactics that police states such as Nazi Germany , the German Democratic Republic and the rest of the Soviet Union did to their political dissidents. The FBI equivalents in those places were respectively the Stasi, Gestapo and the KGB and , since the tactic is not intended for any judicial purpose, can be used against any perceived “enemy of the state” be they dissident or undesirable or someone they need for an informant network(See The Intercept:” Recordings Capture Brutal tactics Used to Recruit a Potential informant”).

During an FBI disruption operation, they follow up with multiple arrests and interviews with the hope of getting useful intelligence and “suggesting” the target become an informant-and then they repeat the process. In the case of private entities and local police using the same tactic-no interview is necessary and , since these are often non-state actors doing the dirty work- there is a lot more latitude greatly increasing the possibility of violence and assaults -either accidental or intended. In fact, given the unprofessional nature of many local police forces-it all to often just degenerates into police harassment and violence-often from the non-state actors and confidential informants.

It’s obvious that this tactic can be used by private entities as well and so the use of this tactic by the FBI and other agencies leads the way for the misuse and abuse of private citizens by public and private entities–especially those who are legal problems, political liabilities, whistle blowers or just “chronic complainers”.