[factorial]

I just had a look at the original post (I'm a native speaker). It said that the government claims to be able, in principle, to partially decrypt PGP and Secure Shell. This is a vague enough statement.

Further, the German government has an incredibly poor track record when it comes to IT. Recent highlights include a laughable "national trojan" that cost millions of tax payer money and didn't quite live up to (leaked) specifications. Further, the lack of knowledge about all matters IT of our elected leaders are frequently being ridiculed. There are interviews of ministers floating around who couldn't say what the Internet or a web browser was.

My best bet is that the spokesperson simply had no clue what PGP is and gave an evasive answer.