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Computerworld - WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not afraid of the public cloud.

Indeed, this agency is vetting cloud providers to host the public websites of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to its CIO, Richard Spires. And the department's use of the public cloud providers is likely to grow, he said.

Spires believes public cloud vendors are on a path to handle more sensitive government information, particularly after the U.S. completes development of a planned security certification system for this industry.

"I am a believer that we are going to, over the next few years, really solve a lot of the cybersecurity concerns that we have with cloud-based services," said Spires.

Vivek Kundra, the federal CIO, has made cloud adoption a priority for federal agencies. But the agencies moving in this direction seem enthusiastic about it as well, and not simply because the president's top IT appointee thinks it's a good idea.

But Kundra also believes that cloud security issues have been used to discourage cloud adoption. "I think there's been an exaggeration," Kundra said.

Doubts about cloud security were expressed by some U.S. lawmakers at a recent hearing by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"A lot of people are sort of driving this notion of fear around security," Kundra said. "And the reason I think that's been amplified, frankly, is because it preserves the status quo."

Kundra, along with some federal CIOs, was at a forum at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday that he organized along with Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), on cloud adoption by the government. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), was also a speaker. "The federal government, for some crazy reasons, has tried to treat every IT system like it is a national security system," Kundra said.

The federal Recovery.gov site is being hosted on Amazon's EC2 cloud, said Kundra. "That's public data -- there's no reason to build a fortress around that and treat it like it's a CIA or NSA system," he said.