Last month in Arkansas, the attorney general issued an opinion at the request of a state legislator on whether or not the state's Freedom of Information Act allowed the public access to emails sent from private email addresses. His response -- Yes, but there is a loophole:

"If the e-mails constitute "public records" under the FOIA, and the corporation is not required to produce them in response to a FOIA request directed to the corporation, a question might arise about how to obtain them. While it is clear that there must be a procedure to obtain the records, the details of that procedure are unclear under the FOIA because the Arkansas Supreme Court has not squarely addressed the situation you posit. In my opinion, there must be a procedure to obtain these e-mails because, otherwise, the FOIA would be subverted, which is something the Arkansas Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear it will not permit.[3] If no procedural mechanism exists to obtain admittedly public records, then a citizen's substantive right to obtain the records is effectively destroyed."

See full opinion here: http://ag.arkansas.gov/opinions/docs/2008-190.html

How are other states' handling this? Anyone have experience fighting for such records?