Edward Snowden claims the United States has kept him stranded him in Russia since leaking leaking sensitive documents exposing a massive National Security Agency surveillance program known as PRISM.

"I had a flight booked to Cuba onwards to Latin America and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in Moscow Airport," Snowden told Brian Williams of NBC News in May 2014.

In other words: Snowden doesn't, and never did, have any intention of returning to the United States to face charges of espionage and theft of government records for a very simple reason: He and his legal adviser don't believe he'd receive a fair trial. And many Americans believe him.

Why Snowden Wouldn't Receive a Fair Trial in the United States

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, exposing to the public the American mistakes in Vietnam since 1945, has sided with Snowden's decision to remain on the run.

"He would have no chance whatsoever to come home and make his case – in public or in court," Ellsberg wrote in The Guardian in May 2014. "Snowden would come back home to a jail cell – and not just an ordinary cell-block but isolation in solitary confinement, not just for months like Chelsea Manning but for the rest of his sentence, and probably the rest of his life."

The root of Ellsberg's and Snowden's arguments is the United States' application of the Espionage Act in cases of whistleblowing and leaks of classified material to the public.

"Without reform to the Espionage Act that lets a court hear a public interest defense – or a challenge to the appropriateness of government secrecy in each particular case – Snowden and future Snowdens can and will only be able to 'make their case' from outside the United States," Ellsberg wrote.

What Crimes Snowden Is Charged With

Snowden, a former intelligence contractor, has been charged with espionage and theft of government records after exposing a massive National Security Agency surveillance program known as PRISM. He is not charged, however, with the more serious crime of treason even though some members of Congress have called his actions traitorous. 

What is the Espionage Act and Why is It Important in the Snowden Case?

The Espionage Act of 1917, under which Snowden is being prosecuted, is the law used to prosecute those who spy on the United States. But it also makes it illegal for anyone to transmit any information that could damage or undermine the United States to an enemy of the nation. 

President Barack Obama's administration has used the law more heavily than most other modern-day presidents against Americans who have been accused of leaking information to the press, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, an advocacy group.

The report found that:

"Six government employees and two contractors - including Edward Snowden - have been the subject of criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press. That compares to three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations. Reporters' phone logs and e-mails were secretly subpoenaed and seized by the Justice Department in two of the investigations."

What critics of the law's application in the Snowden maintain is that Snowden was acting as a whistleblower by unveiling a practice that has since been declared unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled in December 2013 that the phone-data collection by the government under the PRISM program likely violates the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable search and seizure. 

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” the judge wrote.