On 5/17/02, the U.S. House of Representatives issued a request for proposals to digitize their e-mail. Labeled the House Digital Mail Program, it calls for a pilot system to be put in place that would support the digitization of all mail that comes into the offices of up to 50 members and two committees. The anthrax mail scares on the Hill in October 2001, required the switching of Hill mail facilities to an offsite location. This also led to security measures that have increased the amount of time it takes for mail to reach House postal facilities from 3 to 10 days; and for that same mail to then actually reach member offices from a day and a half to almost five days. On 5/28/02, the House Office of Procurement convened a pre-proposal conference on digital mail, which included a number of key bidders, and yielded a considerable amount of information about what the new system might entail. The specifications call for bidders to offer a turnkey solution that would make all first-class and flat postal mail (including images of the envelope) available within 24 hours to the appropriate member office in a range of digital formats (PDF, JPEG, TIFF, etc.) for use with individual correspondence management systems (CMS) for a short-term period of three days maximum, and to also propose an alternate scheme for longer-term storage. The RFP itself also sheds some light on a number of previously murky details of around how mail to House members at least is processed before it gets to member offices. We know, for example, that the House receive some 53,000 pieces of postal mail on average each day-- which can rise to as much as 100,000 when you factor in postcards and from legislative campaigns and the like. Five main vendors supply CMS tools for 100% of all House member offices (and all of those vendore are eligible to bid on the new system). But only 5 of the 23 standing House committees use such a system to track correspondence from the public. The request for proposals is slated to close on 6/24/02, but there is no clear idea of when the actual implementation date would be, or which offices would be involved as of this writing. It does raise some interesting questions, though, as to whether more direct two-way electronic communications systems will be supported consistently across all member and committee offices. For more information, including details on policies in place regarding security of House systems and networks: House Digital Mail Program 5/17/02 Request for Proposals http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/PDFSolicitations/RHIR2002079.pdf House Digital Mail Program RFP Addendum http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/PDFSolicitations/RHIR2002079-amend1.pdf (this is a document containing questions and answers posed at the 5/28/02 Pre-Proposal Conference on Digital Mail. It includes a list of attendees, which might also shed light as to who the potential bidders might be). House of Representatives General Information Security Guidelines http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/PDFSolicitations/HISPOL_2.pdf House of Representatives Protection for Member and Committee Office Systems from Unauthorized Use http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/PDFSolicitations/HISPOL_2-1.pdf House of Representatives Internet/Intranet Security Policy http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/PDFSolicitations/HISPOL_3.pdf House of Representatives Handling and Reporting of Information-System Related Security Incidents http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/PDFSolicitations/HISPOL_4.pdf House of Representatives Security Policy for Remote Access http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/PDFSolicitations/HISPOL_5.pdf House of Representatives Information Security Policy for Permanent Connectivity to the House Network http://www.house.gov/cao-opp/PDFSolicitations/HISPOL_5-1.pdf