During the RSA tech conference held in San Francisco, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announces that his department is trying to work hand-in-hand with several tech giants in Silicon Valley.
At the conference, Johnson annnounced that the Department of Homeland Security is also "finalizing plans to open up a satellite office in Silicon Valley, to service as another point of contact with our friends here."
The secretary added that his department's decision to move to Silicon Valley is in order to promote a good working relationship between the government and the private sector.
According to Gizmodo, the move was made in order to lessen the gap that has been steadily growing between the government and Silicon Valley. The report added that Homeland Security might be eyeing to recruit some engineers and cyber-security experts working in the private sector to transfer to the government agency.
According to Johnson, he was tasked by the United States President to promote "private Information Sharing and Analysis," which tech experts refer to as just another effort of the government to convince private companies to share critical data regarding information security.
In his speech, Johnson also encouraged the audience to help government agencies in getting full access to encrypted data in order to protect the Internet's digital infrastructure.
Despite the good intention behind DHS's decision to move to Silicon Valley, many industry experts are saying that this move is just another lobbying quest from the government in order to persuade private tech companies against the issue of heavy data encryption, according to Tech Times.