
SAN FRANCISCO—Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Tuesday sought to assure Silicon Valley that the Defense Department remains an eager partner on encryption technology despite an ongoing legal battle over whether the courts can compel Apple [AAPL] to give the FBI a “back door” into its products.Carter arrived in San Francisco on Monday for a West Coast tour in which he is slated to do outreach with commercial technology companies such as Microsoft [MSFT] and Amazon [AMZN]. Meanwhile, Apple and the FBI are…