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.
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