Mistrust of government is high these days, so anytime there is an event of unusual circumstance, millions of us immediately think that there must be ulterior motives. Such is the case with actions taken by certain Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on Wednesday, when a number of online news sites were blocked as the ISPs "tested" advanced technology that is capable of blocking access to the Internet. As reported by Before It's News, which cited reporting from regular news sources: The blocking included popular sites like Before It's News, Drudge Report, CNN, MSNBC, Natural News, The Epoch Times, Instapundit and others. The Chinese version of Epoch Times was unaffected, indicating it was targeted to English language news web sites. A blank white screen and "couldn't connect" message were the result after the request timed out.

The Before It's News site and others noted that the outages lasted for several hours and ended around 10 am Pacific Time Wednesday. And only news sites — certain news sites — were blocked. Independent news site WorldNetDaily was also blocked for a time, according to published reports. They "went dark" for hours. more at url