The issue here doesn't have anything to do with Federal funding of research, but the fact that he is technically an employee of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Fr

The issue here doesn't have anything to do with Federal funding of research, but the fact that he is technically an employee of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Freedom of information laws vary by State, but in general, employees of State Universities are State employees, and as such information related to their positions, etc may be subject to a freedom of information request. I'm not intimately familiar with the FOI laws in Virginia, but I do know that they require salaries of all State University employees be divulged under a FOI request (you can get that information here: http://datacenter.timesdispatch.com/databases/salaries-virginia-state-employees/ http://datacenter.timesdispatch.com/databases/salaries-virgi... or any other number of places) It is not at all unprecedented to ask for emails of State employees in a freedom of information request, though the scope must be pretty narrow to be successful. You may see, for example, requests being made for emails related to deliberations around specific procurements. Personally, I think a blanket off limits approach to university personel is a slippery slope. People biased enough to be upset over a request like this should feel free to submit similar requests to researchers (at State institutions) whose results they disagree with. One more point - no FOI request would ever have a chance of being approved asking for something like 'all emails from an email account' - these requests need to be very narrow and specific to be granted so it would likely be something more like 'emails related to one specific research topic in a specific timeframe'. So, folks who think they're looking for a broad selection of personal emails to find something personally embarrassing are off base.