Former American Vice President, Dick Cheney, was a big fan of secret surveillance and monitoring, but wasn't so keen on having aerial images of his house beamed all over the world, so it used to be pixellated out at very low resolution on Google Maps. With the new administration, however, Joe Biden has moved in and suddenly the house has become viewable again.
The change happened on Google Earth on January 18th, and rolled out to Google Maps on the 22nd. Google's official line? They didn't do anything - the images were displayed unaltered from the source - in this case, the U.S. Geological Survey. I'm inclined to believe them, though it's interesting that the White House remained in full view the whole time. For before and after pics, click over the jump.
Before:
After:
The Naval Observatory (via Valleywag)
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