i mean aoc’s referenced sit in was in a federal building open to the public, it’s just being passively noncompliant in a public space. like i’m sitting on the floor in the office and it’s sort of obnoxious but i certainly did not break a law getting here. okay, so now someone asks me to leave and i say no, i am making thus and such a point. then the police come and take me away, typically without incident.
i imagine the person relating this kind of action, practiced en masse since the 60s across civil rights, nuclear nonproliferation, environmental, LGBT movements with storming barricades, dragging police from windows and beating them to death, and literally threatening the seat of government did not actually intend to conflate the two sorts of events.
Assuming the owners of said building do not want you there, occupying a building is at best trespassing and at worst breaking and entering.
Civil disobedience is explicitly breaking a law because you believe it to be unjust, with the full expectation that you will be arrested and possibly punished for your actions.
When most people talk about "protesting", I don't think that's what they're talking about.