I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but I feel puzzled by the tone and language of Edward Snowden’s first official statement since his arrival in the Moscow airport. It feels “off,” not of a piece with his communication earlier. Is this just a sign of some kind of panic on his part? Or did he really write it? Is Ed Snowden even alive? Remember, no one has seen him.

Aha! Here’s someone else who wonders.

•http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/01/1220492/-Snowden-Snowden-Issues-Statement-and-Epistemology

Aha! And twitterers also wonder . . .

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/01/edward-snowden-wikileaks-statement_n_3530837.html

In any case, here are two recent interesting opinion pieces. The first, an RT interview with Norman Solomon.

• ‘There’s element of panic in US policy towards Edward Snowden’

Excerpt:

RT: In the statement Snowden accuses the U.S. of trying to deprive him of his basic rights, including that of seeking asylum. Do you think his accusations are justified? And if America realizes that the information is going to come out anyway, why is it in such a panic to get hold of Snowden?

NS: Yes, the information that hasn’t gone now is already evidently in the pipeline. I think, what Snowden has said, is quite justified – the US is trying to use its economic and political and surveillance reach to grab him, to bring him back in the US. There is an element of panic in US policy towards Edward Snowden and this entire issue, and the effort is of the big global giant trying to crush any ongoing voice in this case from Edward Snowden who could authoritatively, with great information, continue to inform the world. So I think that from the standpoint of democracy, the US government is continuing to try to persecute Mr Snowden by first acting as though there were judge and jury and then pretending to want to go through a legal process. The suppression of Bradley Manning, his nine months in solitary in near and perhaps over the line of torture conditions are a warning and that goes to the last part of your question. The US government wants to discourage whistleblowing from those in agencies like the NSA. The US is far, of course, from the only government that engages in surveillance of its citizens which is improper, including the Chinese and Russian governments. However, the US government is the superpower when it comes to not only military, but also surveillance capability and its actual implementation. And, as an American I find that shameful. That is why at RootsAction.org we have already 46,000 people who have gone to our site in the last few days, sending individual emails to president Obama saying “Hands off Edward Snowden!”

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And the second, from the guardian, a look ahead, if the current technological trajectory continues.

• Edward Snowden may be the last of the human spies

In future, the public may never be alerted to NSA-type revelations because surveillance is fast becoming automated

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Here are more details on what went on, the what, where, when, how and why of the days and nights sliding from Hong Kong to his present limbo state reportedly sequestered in a Moscow airport, with dwindling asylum prospects:

• Edward Snowden’s Moscow stopover became end of the line … for now

When the NSA whistleblower melted into Hong Kong’s streets, many thought he would stay and fight his case. Instead, he ran

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It’s hard not identifying with Snowden and his plight, with no end in sight. Anyone who has ever awakened in the middle of a nightmare and couldn’t go back to sleep again can relate. Here’s “hopegirl”‘s story, from goldenageofgaia; it’s both gripping and typical of a person whose conscience snapped alive and moved her off dead center where she had been “comfortable” on the surface and yet, internally, withering on the vine.

Frankly, I find this aspect of his story the most compelling. Whether or not he’s alive, whether or not he’s been duped into some kind of CIA plot to take down the NSA, even so, the collective imagination fires up to a roar in contemplating his seemingly fearless activism. The archetype of The Fool has been activated. We are jumping off the cliff that the now crumbling “New World Order had so carefully constructed. And we will land in love.

Just yesterday, 33 million Egyptians were on the streets, protesting their oppression. The genie is out of the bottle. Ed Snowden has already achieved his carefully focused, rigorously documented aim.

• Hopegirl: If I had Edward Snowden’s Proof, This is What I’d Do