The US prefers to discredit people in the media as "terrorists" (or "gang members", etc) while throwing an unwinnable pile of charges at them to force a confession (aka "plea bargain"). This have the de facto result of keeping someone either in jail for a while or spending 100% of their time and money on defense.
Regardless of how it turns out, draconian probation requirements, pre-employment questions in the style of "have you been charged with a felony" and the arrest and/or criminal record are very effective at finishing the job of "disappearing" someone with unemployment and the social isolation that happens when someone's reputation is trashed. In many states, you can add long-term or permanent disenfranchisement.
The tactics everyone should be paying attention are closer to COINTELPRO, where key people are removed from potential positions of leadership or organization before they accumulate larger amounts of power. With a mass surveillance network and storage that lets you search through someone's past, parallel construction to remove someone on any kind of trumped up charge is easy.