One Observatory Circle, which is the home of the US vice president, has got a lot less fuzzy since Dick Cheney moved out.

Google Maps had obscured the office and residence of the unpopular vice president, on the very plausible grounds that someone might want to blow the place up.

Now that Dick has handed over the keys to the mansion, the address has suddenly lit up on Google maps and you can see it in all its glory.

 Kate Hurowitz, a Google spokeswoman, told Valleywag that Google Earth and Maps were  updated as new imagery becomes available. Google got its hands on updated imagery of the Washington DC area from several providers. The imagery of the Naval Observatory comes from Digital Globe. It was coincidental that the change in maps happened the same day that Cheney moved out and Joe Biden moved in.

Observers always wondered why Cheney's house remained obscured  even while the White House itself could be seen clearly.
In 2005, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that the vice president, who believes in unwarranted, unlimited snooping, was so pathologically secretive that if you use Google Earth's database to see his official residence, the view is scrambled and obscured.

“You can view satellite photos of the White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol - but not of the Lord of the Underworld's lair,”  she complained. X