From what I recall, talking to one of the Tor founders about this, Tor was created with overseas US military personnel in mind. E.g. A soldier’s location could be compromised through foreign ISPs if they accessed sites like .mil domains directly. Tor was a way of preventing this problem. There were other use cases but this one stood out for me and it was one of the initial ones considered.
Pretty on point with what I'm saying. I remember when Tor first launched and it was definitely framed at the time as for human rights. I absolutely believed all of that for years.
You yourself spoke with the founder about this?