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I mean, they clearly were free to talk, because they did. The “not authorized to speak to the media” part is more along the lines of “not in a high enough position to give a carefully written (filtered through Public Relations, with whatever spin the government wants to put on it) statement”. There’s a big difference between a government employee speaking as an individual, and a government employee speaking on behalf of the government. The former is just a person expressing their concerns, but the latter is an official stance that the government has taken. They simply quoted the speaker as an individual, and made it clear that it’s not an official government statement.
Keeping their name out of it simply ensures there’s no potential blowback for the employee. Publicly speaking against your employer has historically gone poorly for the employees. But journalists want to ensure that people are still willing to come forward in the future. And putting an employee on blast for speaking against their employer would have a chilling effect on future interviewees. So the journalist protects the employee’s identity, while still quoting them as an individual.