The Republic of Texas is a sniff away from enacting, HB 3278, a measure that will limit personal information available in county records.

It would allow you to have personal information redacted or removed from public documents and would require county clerks to remove personal information from documents turned over to the public and remove public documents from online access.
The problem is that sanitizing all county records and putting them back online, would be too expensive. In Fort Bend County alone, there are some 20 million such records, going back to 1838.

Yah, and health care, quality education and safe neighborhoods cost money too. But it’s not really about the cost, it’s about the money. Oil, that is. Political oil. Votes. The current tally is in favor of secrecy in the name of protection from identify theft. But once the transparency of government is clouded, there’s no getting it back. And what will be redacted from these documents? Birth dates on birth certificates? Names on deeds?