President Donald Trump is doubling down on is attacks on the media (except for Fox) and the intelligence community as the former report on, among other things, the resignation/firing of Trump's National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn over contacts with Russia before the election, with some help from leaks from the latter.

It also comes amid some bipartisan support for a continuing Hill investigation into Russian influence on the election.

The President fired off a series of Tweets early Wednesday beginning with: "The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!,"

followed by "This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton's losing campaign," followed by "Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes &

@washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?).Just like Russia," followed by "The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by "intelligence" like candy. Very un-American!."

On Tuesday (Feb. 14), Sen. Mark Warner (D-V.) made it clear that Flynn's exit did not settle the issue.

“Reports that the White House may have been briefed weeks ago on the nature of Gen. Flynn's calls raise deeply troubling questions," he said in a statement e-mailed to B&C/Multichannel News. "The American people deserve to know at whose direction Gen. Flynn was acting when he made these calls, and why the White House waited until these reports were public to take action.

“These developments underscore how many questions still remain unanswered to the American people more than three months after Election Day, including who was aware of what, and when."

In a decision that could affect the flow of data from Europe to the U.S.,  a senior  European Union legal official has advised the EU's Court of Justice that the U.S. cannot ensure adequate privacy protections of European Facebook subs' information transferred to U.S. servers due to mass government surveillance and that a 2000 safe harbor agreement that suggested the U.S. did provide that adequate security is invalid.

Advocate General Yves Bot was providing guidance to the court, which had asked whether that safe harbor agreement precluded  investigating a complaint that, in light of the Edward Snowden revelations about NSA surveillance activities, the U.S. offered no real protections, the safe harbor agreement notwithstanding.

AG Bot said that it was clear that "the law and practice of the United States allow the large-scale collection of the personal data of citizens of the EU which is transferred, without those citizens benefiting from effective judicial protection."

In addition, Bot said that "the access enjoyed by the United States intelligence services to the transferred data constitutes an interference with the right to respect for private life and the right to protection of personal data," and that EU citizens'  inability to be heard in the U.S. about their concerns over surveillance interferes with their right to an effective remedy to surveillance that is "Mass" and "indiscriminate."

The European Commission is currently negotiating with the U.S. on some of the safe harbors "shortcomings," Bot concedes, but says the EC should have suspended that safe harbor decision since by the very fact of negotiating new protections it was conceding the 2000 decision was no longer "adapted to the reality of the situation."

Bot's opinion is not binding on the Court of Justice.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, called the decision "a powerful rebuke against the way U.S. data companies gather information from the EU; raises the legality of the so-called data exchange agreement between the U.S. and EU (Safe Harbor) and sets stage for a court ruling that could overturn that agreement."

“The Advocate General’s opinion puts the nail in the coffin of Safe Harbor," said European consumer group BEUC. "This agreement fails to protect European’s personal data. We hope the European Court of Justice will follow this line and stop the mass-circumvention of EU data protection rules. We welcome the Advocate General’s point of view that national data protection authorities have the responsibility to investigate infringements committed by foreign companies under Safe Harbor. The European Commission, which is currently renegotiating Safe Harbor, received today a clear message that the transfer of European citizens’ data cannot be based on self-assessment by U.S. companies.

RELATED STORY: USA Freedom Act Passes Senate

WASHINGTON — Industry and advocacy groups were generally pleased with passage of the USA Freedom Act on Tuesday (June 2), though for many it was viewed as a step in an ongoing process.

For example, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute (OTI) called it the first major victory in an ongoing battle for surveillance reform.

“The end of bulk collection under the USA Patriot Act is just the beginning — not the end — of reform," OTI policy director Kevin Bankston said. "We will need to be vigilant to ensure that the reforms in USA Freedom are implemented faithfully, using the transparency and accountability tools created by the bill to make sure that the new bans on bulk collection are working. Congress must also quickly turn its attention to the important work of ending mass surveillance and warrantless searches of Americans’ online activities under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act

Computer & Communications Industry Association president Ed Black said: "Today’s vote is a tangible victory for citizens around the world, and a step toward restoring trust in the U.S. government and the ability of lawmakers to do what is right in the face of tremendous political pressure. It also begins the process of rebuilding the confidence of Internet users worldwide in American providers of digital services.

“The USA Freedom Act is not a complete panacea, and serves only as the first step in what will prove to be a lengthy and difficult process to reform the mass surveillance programs in use by the U.S. government.  However, it does much to end the bulk collection of Americans' data across a number of authorities, provides for significant privacy reporting by the private sector, the intelligence community, and secret FISA court, and should lead to improved oversight of surveillance programs by our citizens," Black added.

The bill sets a six-month transition for the reforms, so in the interim the bulk collection will continue.

Tech Freedom, a libertarian-leaning nonprofit advocacy group, said it saw the USA Freedom Act’s passage as a big win and an end to "all" bulk collection of phone records.  “By passing the USA Freedom Act, the Senate has restored legitimate intelligence capabilities while putting an end to needless domestic dragnet data collection,” Tech Freedom president Berin Szoka said. “While the Section 215 sunset was a symbolic victory for privacy, it would have allowed bulk collection to continue under other authorities, such as the FISA pen/trap statute and National Security Letters.”

Software makers were celebrating.

“This is a tremendous accomplishment and an important day for the U.S. technology industry," Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) vice president for public policy Mark MacCarthy said. "This legislation will both safeguard our country and ensure that individual privacy protections are upheld. For more than two years, SIIA and other tech leaders have called for reform of the U.S. surveillance system as an essential part of ensuring America’s continued economic leadership. Because it will restore international trust in American businesses, sensible surveillance reform is not only a security issue, but is also an important economic concern.

The American Civil Liberties Union was celebrating, if only a partial victory.

“The passage of the USA Freedom Act is a milestone. This is the most important surveillance reform bill since 1978, and its passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a blank check," ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer said. "It’s a testament to the significance of the Snowden disclosures and also to the hard work of many principled legislators on both sides of the aisle."

"Still, no one should mistake this bill for comprehensive reform. The bill leaves many of the government’s most intrusive and overbroad surveillance powers untouched, and it makes only very modest adjustments to disclosure and transparency requirements."

But not everyone was applauding.

Tough Patriot Act critic CREDO Mobile, a San Francisco-based wireless provider that uses its profits to fund progressive causes, said it saw things a lot differently.

“The Senate just voted to create sweeping new authorities for the government to conduct unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans," it said in a statement. "From now on, every time the government violates our privacy without a warrant by sweeping up highly-sensitive medical, educational, financial, email and telephone records, the responsibility will rest squarely on the shoulders of the senators who voted today to recreate expired Patriot Act authorities.”

Demand Progress, Public Knowledge, Boing Boing, Credo, Greenpeace and a veritable host of other groups have declared June 5 as Reset The Net Day, a day of "action" to commemorate the publication of the first story about NSA surveillance based on info from leaker Edward Snowden.

They will be advocating encrypting the Internet to prevent mass surveillance by the government, conceding they can't stop targeted attacks.

The group will try to get hundreds of sites to add security, then spread "NSA-resistant" privacy tools on June 5, in what they are calling the Reset the Net campaign.

They are already trying to get supporters to set up this Thunderclap crowd-sourcing platform that automatically sends a mass Tweet from users accounts at the same time; in this case, June 5.

Their message: "Don't ask for your privacy. Take it back. Today we #ResetTheNet to stop mass spying. Encrypt everything! Learn how: http://thndr.it/1euOUIl.”

The White House has taken some steps to better oversee and limit NSA data collection, including outlining a "path" ending bulk collection and releasing a report last week on how to better protect "big data." But the report drew criticism from some quarters for being short on NSA limitations.