My answer to the Stack Exchange question. (Never 100% sure what discussion to add in a post which points to another discussion site...)

There's a good article to answer your question on the Washington Post website [1]:

All those jokes comparing Snowden’s case to the Tom Hanks film “The Terminal”? They have a distinctly unromantic basis in the life of Iranian Mehran Karimi Nasseri [2], who lived in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years after Iran expelled him.

[1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/06/26...

[2]: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0621/p11s02-almo.html

This question makes me think we need a privacy.stackexchange.com and a revolutions.stackexchange.com

Proposals for new stackexchange sites can be submitted through http://area51.stackexchange.com/ ;)

The irony of using centralized social cloud service to organize anti-surveillance movement.

With all the news reporters in that specific transit zone, and after so many days, I find it hard to believe that nobody wasn't even able to see him. My best guess is that he acquired a fake passport/ID and is free somewhere in Russia or elsewhere.

I doubt he can hide that well in such a small airport transit zone, especially from news reporters that are well trained at spotting celebrities in large outdoor spaces - never mind airport transit zones.

He's probably in this hotel an AP reporter experienced:

http://www.adn.com/2013/06/28/2956661/trapped-in-transit-orw...

If so, he could stay there a long time assuming he has sufficiently wealthy backers. $300 a night + food etc. isn't exactly cheap...

At least the hotel in the Dubai airport has awesome massage chairs in the rooms and lets you come and go as you please (unless you're traveling on an Israeli passport, in which case, fly the other way). On the other hand, there are no outdoor facing windows in the rooms and you get the same amused "of course not" when you ask for one.