As I said in my original post, it was not so much  about the content of the private message he quoted, the damage had already been done. It was the principle of the matter! Why let something so important and potentially damaging go without discussion?  Think about the things you have written to others via private message or private email.  I'm sure we all have written things not meant for others to see, yet we are all vulnerable unless there is a system in place here on TER that deals with something like what happened to me.  Hopefully, anytime someone uses quotation marks in their public post, the moderators here will catch it before it can be posted publicly.

Thank you very much for your thoughts and well wishes.  I felt the need to bring this subject to the attention of the discussion board, because as you said, many people are naive (including myself) to believe that what is written privately, will remain private.  I think it's the responsibility of the TER staff to make sure direct quotes from a private email never make it to a public forum, and if they do, punish the perpetrator accordingly.  As for  my situation, I received something of an apology from him, but he also defended himself by saying it was "not a PM". IMO, anything sent to an email account, no matter where it is, should be considered to be a private message... especially if one needs a password to access the message!