As far as I know, this is the first time Snowden is directly penning an article. He even has a staff page [1] now on The Intercept. This is interesting because to me because "At the NSA I routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders in my work" is much more impactful than "Snowden stated that he routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders in his work as an NSA Analyst".
[1]: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/staff/edward-snowden/