The thoughtless leading the learned
So the researchers acknowledge doing government-funded reseach. Nothing wrong with that on its own. However, the concern is that the US government may have employed people to engage in a fishing expedition that unreasonably threatened the innocent as well as the guilty, without probable cause. Issuing a subpoena to get the results of the research you've paid for could be a cover-your-ass legality.
I wish there were as much concern about this here in the UK, as our non-computer literate leaders plan to legislate how things must work. I wonder if our government will one day be as much of a laughing stock as the US politicians who once legislated that the value if Pi is exactly 3....