The way things go these days, we hear a lot about national security and how we have to protect the secrets which keep us safe.

I don’t really believe in conspiracy theories or anything. I think the government puts the best people it can in the jobs that matter. Of course, this doesn’t always work out how everyone hopes.

No magic solution exists. However, I think I know how we can better develop a system from keeping our secrets out of the hands of our enemies. We need to bring in the people who package our electronics.

For a variety of reasons, I have bought a bunch of small electronics or pieces of small electronics lately. I needed a new cell phone and am still dealing with the whole “build your own computer” fiasco which I wrote about a while back.

On that note, if you know me and I ever discuss building anything more complicated than an ice cream sundae on my own, please hit me with a large object. Suffice to say, things have not gone as I had hoped.

But when you do take on a task like building your own computer, you have to open a bunch of individual items. All of them are sealed in plastic packages. All of them require a Herculean effort to get to the thing you actually need to use.

I know companies have to protect themselves from theft and fraud, but I think the whole idea has gone a little too far. You should be able to open the packages easily and without needing to swear at least twice in the process.

This doesn’t even get into the fact that you need the biggest pair of scissors you can find in order to open electronic devices which require a delicate touch. That’s always a good idea. Because when you’re frustrated and impatient, you really need a big pair of scissors handy.

Even if you do manage to get the package open without damaging the product or slicing your hand open, you always have to worry about the item flying across the room as the plastic finally succumbs to your efforts and rips into two useless pieces.

But if the item doesn’t work, you need to return it with the original packaging, presumably so they can laugh at how much work you had to do to open the darn thing in the first place.

Maybe if we kept our national security secrets in the same packaging that businesses used to hold computer memory, we might not have to worry about spies or anything like that.

Right now, someone can slip a flash drive in a computer and download all the information they want. With my plan, someone would definitely notice the shifty guy delicately trying to cut open the package without slicing through the pages he wanted to sell to North Korea.

After all, what do we want to keep more secure – diplomatic papers or a memory card you can pick up at any major retailer for $20?