When a massive DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack briefly took down large numbers of popular websites this month, politicians were quick to take to the airwaves to "explain" to the public what was going on, and they sure didn't let the fact that they're technologically clueless stop them.

It's been hard to keep track of all the blatantly incorrect, misleading, fear mongering statements that members of Congress and other officials have made, but there's one that stands out as the most ridiculous.

Tennessee's Representative Marsha Blackburn went on CNN shortly after the attacks and implied that the Internet outage could have been prevented by a bill called SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, which you may remember because it was resoundingly rejected after mass protests as TERRIBLE idea that would have lead to widespread internet censorship. It also had absolutely *nothing* to do with preventing cyber attacks. Even it's proponents would agree that it was about copyright enforcement, not digital security. It certainly did nothing to hold companies accountable for improving the security of consumer technology products, which is what actually would prevent attacks like this.

Blackburn went on to blame free speech advocates for having stopped SOPA, and even went so far as to call us ... wait for it ... CYBERBOTS!!!

Do you care about free speech? If so, send Marsha Blackburn an email telling her that you're a cyberbot too, and that she should really learn some basics about how the Internet works before talking about it again on television.

Fill out the form to sign this petition to Marsha Blackburn:

"I am one of the 'cyberbots' who opposes censorship bills like SOPA. Misguided legislation won't stop cyber attacks. Please educate yourself on this issue and listen to tech experts who actually understand how the Internet works. Exploiting these attacks to push for bad laws is shameful."