Gary Sinnott launched a Web site in the mid 1990s, www.mildenhall.com to promote his hometown. He soon began receiving emails from members of the U.S. Air Force who were trying to send messages to people at the base located in the town. The email address for those stationed there was mildenhall.af.mil.

He reported the problem to base officials a number of times and was told not to worry about it. The Air Force maintained there had been no "verified security breach" but on one occasion Sinnott received an email about the flight plan for Air Force One.

When he told an official about receiving information about the presidential flight the official "went nuts". "That kind of information is not meant to be passed out to Joe Public," Mr. Sinnott told the BBC.

In addition he received another email about U.S. "military procedures and tactics." "It had the notice ‘Destroy by any means to prevent capture’," he said.

Sinnott has since decided to close down his Web site in order to stop receiving the emails.

Master Sergeant Charles Tubbs, chief of media relations at RAF Mildenhall said," There has not been any verified security breach that warrants any action."

The Air Force Network Operations Center (AFNOC) said," AFNOC has imposed bans on all sites with ‘blog’ in their URLs, thus cutting off any sites hosted by Blogspot. Other blogs, and sites in general, are blocked based on content reviews performed at the base, command and AFNOC level."

    Gen. David Petraeus

Major Henry Schott, A5 for Air Force Network Operations says the idea is to allow access to "news sources that are primary, official-user sources. "Basically … if it’s a place like The New York Times, an established, reputable media outlet, then it’s fairly cut and dry that that’s a good source, an authorized source," he said.

While the Air Force says that blogs are not a credible media outlet many do not agree and view blogs as a good source for information and a way to influence opinions domestically and internationally. Gen.David Petraeus who is in charge of the U.S. effort in Iraq has been supportive of military bloggers.

Lt. Gen. William B.Caldwell IV who is the head of the Combined Arms Center wrote in a blog post that soldiers should "get onto blogs and send their YouTube videos to their friends and family," according to Wired.

Retired Air Force Col. Tom Ehrhard who is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says there are security concerns surrounding blogs. He said, "We are in a different world today when it comes to sensitive military information, and foreign intelligence operatives surely understand this and will exploit it."

"As a former member of Strategic Air Command, where OPSEC was (rightly) an obsession, this has been obvious to me for some time in reading aerospace-oriented blogs. This policy strikes me as a timely reminder to Air Force professionals that they should be on guard when blogging, because someone is watching."

Deptula serves as Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, and in regards to programs like Google Earth, he said, “To talk about danger is, if I may, really is irrelevant because it’s there.”

As reported by Reuters, Deptula then added, “No one’s going to undo commercial satellite imagery.”

The lieutenant general’s comments could even help quiet some politicians who have called for Google to censor itself.  “Asked if the US military might try to implement restrictions or blackouts on imagery of some areas, Deptula said he was not aware of such an attempt,” according to Kristin Roberts.

As for what the military is doing about this issue . . . there’s not much information.  “[G]overnments are trying to mitigate the effect through camouflage, concealment and deception, he said, providing no other details,” Roberts continued.  Well, I called the military “practical,” not “open.”

In any case, a lot of Googlers are probably hoping that Lt. Gen. Deptula will get the last word on this matter.