Question: Is an e-mail from a government employee a matter of public record even if it's from a private and personal e-mail account?
Logic says no - they're still private citizens with private email accounts, same as everyone else - but I defer to the actual DOT employees.
It likely also depends on where the email was written from: state-owned PC/smartphone vs. privately-owned tech device.
Of course, there's other public employees besides DOT employees!
As a government worker, while were not often told to remember that anything we write becomes public, it should be in the back of our heads to keep in mind. We did have one email from our admin reminding us of that...apparently due to a public request in which someone must've written something that they didn't want to get released. Whoops!
We also don't have to put those ignored statements on the bottom of our emails either, thank goodness.
As far as public/private emails: Even if I use my personal email account on my public computer at work, that's not public info. Also, and I can't speak for other states and the feds, but in my state you can't also just say I want to see all the emails someone wrote. You would need to specify the subject of the emails you're looking for.
And finally, to be realistic...any email can be released. If I took an email from Scott's Yahoo account and blasted it on this and every other website, what's he going to do? He'll ban me from here no doubt. But will he sue? For what? And what's the chances I even show up at court 2,000 miles away? The info is out there...the only thing he can really do is not communicate with me again.