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Google Earth Uncovers Secret UK Nuke Base 240

thefickler writes "Gone are the days when governments could easily hide top secret bases. These days it's a weekend pastime to see who can find top secret facilities using Google Earth. Now it's the UK government's turn to be outraged after a secret facility was revealed by a British tabloid. The facility is said to be located in Faslane on the River Clyde in Scotland. This nuclear base was previously blurred out by the request of the British Government. However, with the latest update provided via Google Earth, many of the blurred out locations were accidentally revealed." Update: 3/08 at 14:24 by SS: Multiple readers have pointed out that the issue here is not the location of the base — it's simply that details of buildings and objects within the base (such as the location of a pair of nuclear submarines) are accidentally visible after the UK government specifically requested they be blurred out.
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Google Earth Uncovers Secret UK Nuke Base

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  • by EWAdams ( 953502 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:24AM (#27111535) Homepage

    Oooh... like that huge bottle-green and cream building with all the satellite dishes on top was invisible to the tens of thousands of commuters who pass by it on the railroad every day.

    Everybody knows where these things are anyway. The newspapers are just having a slow day, so let's take another whack at technology/Google/the Internet.

    • by legirons ( 809082 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:46AM (#27111653)

      Back when that building was used in the Bond film, HIGNFY reported: "MI6 were concerned the film might reveal the location of... one of London's most distinctive landmarks"

      • by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @10:21AM (#27112459) Homepage Journal

        And who in their right mind thinks that a foreign nation doesn't already know the existence, location and layout of various bases around the world?

        Some bribes or joint ventures later and information exceeding the information available at Google Earth is widespread.

        Blurring a satellite or air photo today is just a giveaway since two different distributions never have the same blurring and that tells others that this is a site of interest.

        • What the gov't is pissed off about is that you can see 2 nuclear subs docked ... scroll up to the top of the bay, zoom in.

          Sure, foreign governments probably already have assets on the ground keeping watch of the ebb and flow of traffic, but it's nice to have visible confirmation (you can confirm the date of the pictures by using shadows - every day, the shadows will be slightly different as the sun appears to trace a slightly different arc in the sky).

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            Come on, at least give the boys at the Kremlin the chance to earn their wages. Scroll up to the top indeed!
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by timeOday ( 582209 )
            The only adversaries targeted or threatened by nuclear subs have their own satellite imagery.
            • The only adversaries targeted or threatened by nuclear subs have their own satellite imagery.

              Really? Afghanistan has satellites? Where'd they get them from - in a box of Girl Guide Cookies?

              UK nuclear subs are equipped with BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles. And they HAVE been used by the UK Navy against Afghanistan ... and Kosovo [wikipedia.org]

          • by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @11:10AM (#27112759)
            Sure, foreign governments probably already have assets on the ground keeping watch of the ebb and flow of traffic

            Any foreign government with an interest in this information HAS IT'S OWN SURVEILLANCE SATELLITES. They are not going to use Google, which can be months out of date, when they can get real time images. Even Iran has the capacity to launch these now. And anyone else can just pay a small fee to one of several commercial satellite surveillance services, not all of which are beholden to the UK government.

            Of course, TFA talks about "terrorists" targeting the subs with rockets. Right. Could terrorists get that kind of weapon into the UK and close to a nuclear weapons installation? I find it hard to believe. But there is an infinite number of soft targets they could hit with greater hope of doing damage and less risk.

            • Not true.

              UK nuclear subs have launched cruise missiles against both Kosovo and Afghanistan. If these countries have satellite surveillance, it's got to be one of the best-kept secrets in the world. Citizen, it is your duty to report this new Afghani satellite capability.

              • by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
                By "havng an interest in the information" I meant "having the capacity to do something with it". Not just "wanting" to strike back. I haven't heard of any Taliban or Serbian expeditionary forces invading the UK.
            • by pbhj ( 607776 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @02:03PM (#27113805) Homepage Journal

              Of course, TFA talks about "terrorists" targeting the subs with rockets. Right. Could terrorists get that kind of weapon into the UK and close to a nuclear weapons installation?

              They've got the weapons, they don't need to get them into the UK, there's a sea route past Arran, looks like there's a torpedoe net around the subs but I'm sure a shoulder mounted SAM would do enough damage to put them out of action for a while.

              I think I'd have asked that the subs be duplicated a few hundred times around the coast line instead. Now that's a deterrent!

          • OK, so now the terrorists know that on a particular day, probably several years ago (based on the age of the images of my neighborhood), there were two nuclear subs docked at Faslane. What exactly is the tactical value of this information?
          • by Brianech ( 791070 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @03:43PM (#27114359)
            Thats just a cover, keep scrolling up and you'll notice a whole field of crop circles!!!! Thats what was really supposed to be blurred out. If you think about it, a nuclear submarine dock is the perfect cover for an alien landing zone... Im getting images of the Men in Black all over again.
        • by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @02:25PM (#27113921) Homepage Journal

          And who in their right mind thinks that a foreign nation doesn't already know the existence, location and layout of various bases around the world?

          It reminds me of the story (reported in various tech journals but not so much in the MSM) back in the 1970s about the US DoD funding a study by some university people of what could be learned about US military sites and activity from public sources like newspapers, libraries, etc. The story was that a couple of profs (i.e., their grad students) spent a year perusing such public information sources, wrote up their report, sent it in - and with a few days, it was classified Top Secret.

          When I read that, I did wonder how many offers of employment the profs (and their grad students) got from various foreign governments. It seemed to me that it could become a viable career path for a small number of people. But I never read any followups.

          Now I wonder how much you could learn by just googling for the information. And if you sent your summary report to the DoD, how quickly would it get classified?

    • by Stuart Gibson ( 544632 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @08:00AM (#27111721) Homepage

      Sorry, but the UK has never been that big on keeping their secret nuclear bunkers very secret: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimram/122464288/ [flickr.com]

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Cally ( 10873 )
        Apparently there's some sort of big round building [theregister.com] in Cheltenham, too. (Yes, El Reg had this story a week ago.) Everyone knew about that one even when Ordnance Survey maps showed blank white space there; nowadays, it's shown on the local road signs. Hey, it looks like an old-fashioned mainframe tape-drive! To be fair, everyone knows where the MI6 HQ in Vauxhall is, but the MI5 building [google.com] is less well-known, mainly because it looks no different than many other buildings in the area.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by JCWDenton ( 851047 )
          Following your link I found they've posted pictures of their headquarters on their website http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/thames-house-image-gallery.html [mi5.gov.uk] . You'd think any civilian taking pictures of the building would subsequently be subjected to a little chat with the law but there's no problem when they show it on their site in all it's glory from various angles...
        • by Inda ( 580031 )
          I drive past there regularly. You hear all sorts of stories about mobiles (cell phones) not working as you drive past, new house torn down because residents could view PC monitors through their windows, and general stories about stuff going bump in the night.

          All absolute bollocks.
          • by Cally ( 10873 )

            The best Doughnut story I've heard was in the local rag recently (last year or two.) Apparently some contractors (plasterers, chippies, "allied building crafts") forgot the car-park pass on their van one morning. Rather than waste time explaining this at the gatehouse, filling in forms, et cetera ad nauseam, they decided to show a little initiative and cut through the tangled web of form-filling. They parked up in a nearby side street and attempted to /vault the fence/...

            Cue a few dropped cups of coffee, wa

    • by H3g3m0n ( 642800 )
      You know Google probably have a vast amount of information about secret government facilities.

      Countries, just tell this large American corporation all the things you don't want anyone to know about.

      Not to mention all the webbased email accounts hosting in America, does anyone think that the FBI doesn't have a direct thunk to the Googleplex?
      • by TheLink ( 130905 )
        Well I suspect the NSA buys lots of Google Ads or something ;).

        In theory Google could also do quite well in the financial markets using their info, since lots of people actually use Google to look up financial info.
    • by tverbeek ( 457094 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @08:45AM (#27111933) Homepage
      And according to the Sun, Google Earth "even reveals the longitude and latitude of ... Faslane, Scotland"! Without Google's help, terrorists would have needed access to an Ordnance Survey map of Argyll and pocket calculators to ascertain this esoteric information!
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Skeptical1 ( 823232 )
      Don't shoot till you see the blur in their eyes !-) Target the blur! Aye Cappin!
    • Google earth data is usually very old. Last I heard, nuclear submarines tend to move around.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by FTWinston ( 1332785 )
        Fastlane's where the UK's fleet lives. Its where they all come back to dock at - its our only nuclear sub base, afaik.

        There's a permanent protest camp just outside it.
        This is about an article from the Sun ... so by definition, its a non-story.
        • by Plunky ( 929104 )

          Fastlane's where the UK's fleet lives. Its where they all come back to dock at - its our only nuclear sub base, afaik.

          There are often nuclear subs at Plymouth too though I don't know if it is a permanent base or just a refit facility. In fact there is some controversy in the local newspaper [thisisplymouth.co.uk] this week as a reactor from HMS Vanguard is being cut up for disposal in the dockyard.

  • by celardore ( 844933 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:25AM (#27111539)
    I came up with a secret nuclear bunker, too. link [secretnucl...nker.co.uk]
  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:25AM (#27111543)

    Doesn't that just mean that a whole chain of people at Google now know the location is sensitive and could turn around and pass on that information?

    If they ask to have it Photoshopped into non-existence then you know you've got really hot property!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by qbzzt ( 11136 )

      Doesn't that just mean that a whole chain of people at Google now know the location is sensitive and could turn around and pass on that information?

      Not if the government is smart enough to request enough blurs, with some of them being duds.

      Besides, it's really hard to hide the existence of a facility in a densely populated area such as South England. The best you can hope for is to hide some of the internal details.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I guess it wasn't that secret after all... Anyone with access to the original pictures could discover the base, and as you mention the people at Google were given at least a huge hint that it is lying there.

      I wouldn't call anything secret is a whole bunch of people with no connection to the base in question that have the information to find it. Sure, with more eyes looking something hidden might become easily uncovered, I guess that's part of the reason they requested the blurring, but once they made that h

      • Honestly, it has never been secret. Its massive, and you can often see the subs sailing up and down the clyde. Besides, if I was looking for somewhere secret, and it was a choice between the big crappy warehouse on the clyde patrolled constantly by guard dogs to keep the hippies from the permanent protest camp from climbing in, or the Mysterious Blur ... the blur would win every time.
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by CarpetShark ( 865376 )

      Doesn't that just mean that a whole chain of people at Google now know the location is sensitive and could turn around and pass on that information?

      Perhaps, but Google also know the enforcement people's browsing habits, so no enforcement will be done.

    • Doesn't that just mean that a whole chain of people at Google now know the location is sensitive and could turn around and pass on that information?

      Don't you think the workers who built the place knows where it is, or did they bury them when they were done building it?

      It's not like you can easily hide big things when thousands of people are involved in building and maintaining them... Perhaps it's just better to let it be a public secret...

      • Building a facility, and knowing what will be inside it are two completely different things.

        "You're here to build an office building, a big warehouse, and a large dock"

        Big deal. It could be moving plastic dog turds from China, or ... well ... a base for storing nukes and docking nuclear submarines. :)

        If the folks requesting the work to be done did their job right, the cover story will adequately explain the facility.

      • Of course you can.

        "I think," said Ford in a tone of voice which Arthur by now recognized as one which presaged something utterly unintelligible, "that there's an SEP over there."

        He pointed. Curiously enough, the direction he pointed in was not the one in which he was looking. Arthur looked in the one direction, which was towards the sight-screens, and in the other which was at the field of play. He nodded, he shrugged. He shrugged again.

        "A what?" he said.

        "An SEP."

        "An S ...?"

        "... EP."

        "And what's that?"

        "Someb

  • by GreatBunzinni ( 642500 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:26AM (#27111553)

    Do the enemy nations also blur their secret bases at the request of the british government?

    • by poena.dare ( 306891 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @08:04AM (#27111749)

      Most nations can't afford the 18,558,720 pixel wide brush required.

      • by tyldis ( 712367 )

        But they can afford to pay my employer a few dollars to get their own picture of the site.

        We aqcuire and sell satellite imagery of the location of your choice. If the weather is nice enough you can expect an image within hours of ordering.

        We are also downlinking most of the imagery used by Google...
        These things are availible commercially for anyone and for any purpose.

    • Exactly. I'm not sure when exactly Google's commercially available, unclassified satellite maps became any kind of threat compared to actual spy photography.

      At least with the "soft targets" argument some days back, you could argue that terrorists don't have access to a well-equipped intelligence apparatus and rely on commercial maps. (The argument is still expertly defeated by Schneier's explanation how we cannot cripple our infrastructure in favor of security, though.)

      With top-secret nuclear bases, on the

  • by ed ( 79221 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:27AM (#27111563) Homepage

    Now all the mystery of the road signs, American Service personnel, people mentioning it in the media and the submarines sailing up and down the Clyde is solved.

    WHO KNEW!!!!!

  • Bad summary (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:29AM (#27111567)

    SPOILER ALERT: Faslane is not a "secret" facility. It's the level and quality of imagery that's the problem. Good old /. editing at its finest, I had to actually check for a second that it wasn't actually another kdawson...in any case this "news" is at least a week old.

  • by while(true) ( 626738 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:29AM (#27111569)
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by legirons ( 809082 )

      As usual, El Reg [theregister.co.uk] has useful commentary

    • Was this the article between the one about the chavy kids getting pregnant and the one about immigrants destroying Britain?
    • by tverbeek ( 457094 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @08:55AM (#27111997) Homepage
      And in a related news article, [thesun.co.uk] The Sun reports that Google Earth's new ocean-floor imagery reveals the location of the lost city of Atlantis on the ocean floor west of the Canary Islands. A photo of Patrick Duffy is used as an illustration, and a reaction commentary by none other than Plato accompanies the story. You can't make shit like this up... because The Sun does it for you.
      • by MooUK ( 905450 )

        You have to love the complete misunderstanding of Google's explanation of blank areas. Google says "The lines are where the boat scanned, the gaps are where it didn't". The Sun says "Google can't explain the gaps".

      • by pbhj ( 607776 )

        a reaction commentary by none other than Plato accompanies the story. You can't make shit like this up... because The Sun does it for you.

        Maybe Atlantis was a republic?

        Wonder what Pluto thought of that?

    • Got to love how their top banner is switching between some dying "star", a screaming wane rooney, an article about assassinated troops and some hotie in her lingerie....
      • by Plunky ( 929104 )

        for a moment there, I thought there was breaking news of a supernova visible in the skies above!

  • by onion2k ( 203094 ) * on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:31AM (#27111577) Homepage

    The places the government publicise that they want to keep secret aren't actually secret at all. They're a façade. Then there's the somewhat secret stuff that the government denies exists. The real secret stuff is the stuff the government never mentions.

    Never heard the government mention their lunar base with telescopes that can see through the roofs of buildings and spy on you on the toilet? That's pretty much proof they've got one, but it's a secret!

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Never heard the Russian mention their sewage plant with borescopes that can see through the floors of buildings and spy on you on the toilet?
    • The real secret at Faslane is the "public road."

      It is a secret runway used by the Royal Airforce to launch unmanned drones equipped with CCTVs. This allows Her Majesty's government to cover the few areas that have not yet had permanent CCTV cameras installed.

      The Faslane nuclear submarine facility is used for cover.
  • by julian67 ( 1022593 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:32AM (#27111585)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faslane [wikipedia.org] "Her Majesty's Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde is one of three UK operating bases for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Devonport and HMNB Portsmouth). It is the service's headquarters in Scotland and is best known as the home of the United Kingdom's Trident-armed nuclear submarine force." This place has been notorious/famous for decades. Whoever wrote this "news" story is a fucking idiot and recycling on /. is fucking dumb too. Some of the other "top secret" places featured in the story feature regularly in documentaries, fiction, news reports and so on. Some of them are so secret that they have their own public website complete with pictures and a contact us button :-) http://www.sis.gov.uk/output/sis-home-welcome.html [sis.gov.uk] Well done Timothy, well up to your usual standard (rubbish).
  • Under cover. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bazman ( 4849 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:35AM (#27111595) Journal

    Ooh, like the Russians never knew there was a submarine base at Faslane before...

    Since Sputnik went up, governments have known that secret locations wouldn't be secret for long. And if the Russians can photograph it, they can sell the photos to terrorists. Google will get them sometime after.

    If governments want to do stuff in secret they know they have to do it undercover. There's a big covered dock right next to the two obvious submarines on the Faslane google maps imagery. That's where the secret stuff happens. Until we get Google Thermal Imagery Earth, of course.

    Anyone know what the circular mounds are to the north of the base?

    • by denzacar ( 181829 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:42AM (#27111627) Journal

      Anyone know what the circular mounds are to the north of the base?

      I could probably tell you that those are the Top Secret military pancake storage facilities, but then you would have to be blurred out on google maps too.

    • And if the Russians can photograph it, they can sell the photos to terrorists. Google will get them sometime after.

      Which reminds me of the TerraServer [terraserver-usa.com] sat images, that IIRC were bought by Microsoft from the Russians (after the wall came down). Makes sense, good pictures of the US you buy from the ruskies and for high quality pictures of Moskou you go to the CIA.

  • by Samschnooks ( 1415697 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:35AM (#27111601)

    Some of the other locations revealed are MI6â(TM)s London offices, Britainâ(TM)s nuclear crisis HQ and the SAS training facility. Apparently the UK Government is worried that terrorists could potentially launch missile attacks to those target areas with the exact coordinates readily available on the Internet.

    So, the UK Government is actually saying, "Oops! You got us! That's exactly what they are! As matter of act, those buildings are exactly what you think they are and then some! What what! Cheers!"

    Could these buildings be not very important and the UK gov is making them seem more important to distract everyone from the real targets? I don't see anything that makes that facility ultra secure like you'd expect for someplace that is that sensitive. Look how close it is to the highway (A814)? Here in the States, there'd be a HUGE driveway or access road so that someone couldn't just park at the side and lob a mortar shell over or what have you.

    A tabloid said this? A PRINTED tabloid that will do anything to increase circulation; especially in this economy?!?

    I could go on but I'm sick of typing.

  • WTF? Hidden? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lars T. ( 470328 ) <Lars...Traeger@@@googlemail...com> on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:38AM (#27111615) Journal
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNB_Clyde [wikipedia.org] Everybody already knew where the base is, there are public roads surrounding it, the Wikipedia article even as an aerial photo of it. So unless they are worried that terrorists start using GPS guided "smart" weaponry (but of course conventionally armed, because for nuclear they knew enough already) instead of just flying a plane packed with explosives into it, why the hell are they outraged exactly?
  • by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:45AM (#27111649) Homepage Journal

    .....so can us little brothers be watching big brother... No double standards here.

    Of the 6 plus billion people on this planet, it is some fraction of 1% that messes things up for the rest of us.
    Its about time we start watching them..

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by jelizondo ( 183861 ) *

      .....so can us little brothers be watching big brother... No double standards here.

      Of the 6 plus billion people on this planet, it is some fraction of 1% that messes things up for the rest of us.
      Its about time we start watching them..

      It's about time we start whacking them.

      There ya go, fixed that for ya!

  • Good aerial photos of potential military targets are extremely useful to missile guidance systems. Even if you use a non-visual guidance system, the high resolution photos are excellent for locating a base very precisely and adjusting inertial guidance systems. And the same issues apply to potential civilian protest or enemy sabotage at nuclear facilities: good quality aerial photos are very useful for plotting the location of the nuclear materials, access routes, security facilities, places to hide, and es

    • by OldCrasher ( 254629 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @08:08AM (#27111775) Homepage

      The only people left that haven't a clue about what goes on in dockyards at Faslane are the British Taxpayers. Everyone else has spies there and photographs the place as needed.

      • And there's a big difference between 'knows what goes on there' and 'color photos with 1 meter resolution of the whole base'. That's enough to pick out doorways, barracks, guardstations, and fuel storage.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08, 2009 @07:54AM (#27111693)

    There are better pictures courtesy of the US military
    http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/~cannon/medports/Faslane/HMNB_picture.html [navy.mil]

  • The submitter is clueless. The 'British tabloid' is a scandal rag not above inventing a controversy. Everyone knows where Faslane is. Everyone knows what is there. Do you think no-one has wondered where all the nuclear subs dock? Where do you think the Russian missiles spent 50 years targeting during the cold war, (and may even still do)?

  • Conspiracy theory anyone? Microsoft Virtual Earth has better and more recent imagery than Google Earth - there's some obvious new earthworks. No mention of MS Virtual Earth in The Sun. What's the Fox/MS relationship?

  • In related news, it is reported that the Wall Street Journal leaked that the Allied have broken the Nazi Ultra code.
  • That story is just about right for the Sun. Everyone can find Faslane but more importantly, there isn't enough detail to find a way to sneak onto the base, avoiding security and better information can probably be bought from the black market which terrorists will know about.
  • With as much information as google already has, and will have each and everyday, what's to say that they couldn't just slowly and quietly start to take over?
  • Now the terrorists will know the long/lat of the base and can launch accurate mortar attacks! How are these terrorists going to get close to this base to launch mortar attacks? I'm assuming the base is protected. I bet everyone in the area terrorists included knew the base was there by, oh I don't know, watching those tons of warships parked there coming in and out port?
  • by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @10:33AM (#27112531) Homepage
    All your base are belong to Gauss?
  • ...ah, you mean this one? [exec-comms.com]

  • ""If people are really determined to target these sites they can find these images and there is nothing we can do to stop them." - MOD spokesman

    In short, "people can get their hands on these images without Google"

  • by ebydav ( 529472 ) * on Sunday March 08, 2009 @12:00PM (#27113111)
    and at least make some ad revenue.
  • by PPH ( 736903 )
    Its a nuclear sub base. Most of the time the subs will be out at sea, invisible to Google Earth.
  • Nothing special (Score:5, Interesting)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @01:43PM (#27113683)

    During most of the cold war, you would think that the superpowers would be cognizant of satellite spying. These days, there's ever more satellites out there so governments should take necessary safeguards. There were stories about how the Soviet missile sites were easily detectable on by satellite photos.

    First of all, a nuclear missile is expensive. You probably want high security around it. According to Soviet protocols, three layers of fencing are standard. Also to get the missile to the site, it has to be a delicate operation. You can't haul them over rocky and uneven terrain. Unlike the West, the Soviets didn't build roads to everywhere, only where they were necessary. Also the missile launchers were loaded onto trucks that required a wide turning radius.

    So American intelligence found 1) a paved road to the middle to nowhere, 2) wide turning radii in the road, and 3) three layers of fencing at the endpoint of the road, they found a missile site.

  • by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @01:45PM (#27113695) Homepage

    There's been progress. At one time, Google blurred the roof of the White House. That was just silly, and that stopped some time ago. The entire U.S. Naval Observatory area in Washington was blurred while Cheney lived there, but it's not blurred as much now. In fact, there's even a marker for "One Observatory Circle". There remains some blurring, though, and it ends just outside Observatory Circle.

    The big change is that StreetView is now available for the Washington area.

  • Geez.. if you look at the imagery date in GE, it's March 13, 2003!!! Last time I heard, submarines move around a bit.. especially over 6 flippin' years!!
     

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