I haven't actually used Tails because my computer actually doesn't support it. It's one of the very few that doesn't. So when you yank the USB, does it automatically trigger a shutdown sequence? Or does it leave the system booted and just would put it into a weird state? Because in that second frame, you might be able to get stuff from the RAM or programs that are already open.

I have pulled live USBs before, and since a lot of the system is loaded into the RAM, it still operates on a limited basis.