The latter often describes civil disobedience.
Sabotage: I will secretly undermine your operations and try not to get caught. My sabotage is operational- it is most effective when undiscovered.
Civil disobedience: I will publicly defy your rules with every intention of being apprehended. My defiance is political- it achieves nothing by itself, and must be public.
Yes, both involve breaking rules, but that is where the similarities end.
The point behind civil disobedience is to publicly demonstrate the unjustness of the law, not fight it head-on. Remember when those nonviolent University students a little while ago got pepper-sprayed? Much, much better press for them and their cause than "students start brawl with police".
Some people believe civil disobedience doesn't have to be nonviolent, but most people agree on nonviolence and all the famous examples of civil disobedience were nonviolent (Rosa Parks, Thoreau, Gandhi, etc)
I said nothing about violence - in fact, your comment is the first on this page to mention violence - so I don't really understand where you're coming from.