Let me make sure that I understand your argument.  In summary, you're saying that we should fight the change in technology because it takes away a measure of privacy (practical obscurity, as you say) that was never explicitly or implicitly guarenteed in the first place.  That someone who wishes to review public records of a given county physically be present in the county courthouse to do so, but that no restraints or records of those physical examinations be kept at the county to identify individuals who do so.
     I'll say it one more time, then give up.  There is no such thing as private information in a public record.  It is, in being made available by the county clerk and by it's very nature, public. 

Charles W. Skinner
National Vendor Management
Consumer Marketing Services, Inc.