Hacker News Reader

Exactly. It's pure spin, the content stayed exactly the same, they just replaced some words. Apparently done well enough, to confuse even Spiegel Online.

Here is some reporting on it:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%...

http://netzpolitik.org/2013/spiegel-online-ente-union-gibt-v... (German)

View on HN

It's also important to note that this shift in wording predates the whole Snowden/NSA story. It is conveniently interpret in its light, now that the NSA in political discourse. Also note that Germany is facing federal elections in just a few months...

Why, even the Spiegel article says right at the beginning that it's just playing with words for the sake of elections:

"But for this change of course to be more than just an election ploy, the government should however advocate a change in the EU Directive in Brussels. Which prescribes a six-month storage of traffic data - and the Union confirms in other parts of its election manifesto that it holds onto the fundamental goal to implement the Directive. "Minimum retention period" is spoken in the Union for two years already - and means nothing but data retention."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com