Hypothetically, if you are a witness or whistleblower who's adversary was a very big corporation (such as boeing), what measures could you take to prevent yourself from being "suicided"?
Easy. We had a list of the fifteen or so guys that did that specific part of the job, we got their IP addresses, watched them for a while, and as it turns out, two of them regularly use a VPN and send all of their traffic to Canada.
How long do you think it would take to figure out whether or not which one of these boys are harmless software pirates, or their man?
People do all of the work in the world without knowing that your preparation will blow your cover.
Have you ever visited TailsOS's website off of a VPN? Could the Feds find out? Do you think the other guys have the same level of deniability?
That trail is not washing off. You even knowing or having a history of using a Linux iso is suspicion enough if the rest of the suspects are all boring chuds.
Not even, it's just comparing you to the average joe.
Who's more suspicious? The dude who visits GitHub, has a Matrix account and visits the arch wiki every six months or the dude who mostly sticks to Facebook talking to his family?