Marko Hakamaa

Adjudicators must be decisive and efficient critical thinkers to make quality adjudicative decisions and meet timeliness standards, ensuring mission readiness and risk mitigation. They require a strong knowledge of the policies and procedures that govern adjudications and need to be able to efficiently review a subject’s case, identify the information

An interesting Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA) case caught my eye because it involved a DoD contractor who had his security clearance revoked for being a member of what the Federal Government calls an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMG). Even more unusual, in his initial appeal to a DoD

Under the national security adjudicative guidelines Personal Conduct (Guideline E) covers many areas that don’t fall into criteria under other guidelines. Disqualifying conduct under personal conduct includes dishonesty, history of rule-breaking, failure to follow orders, negligence in work performance, falsification, civil litigation, or omission of relevant facts during the background

The Department of State (DoS) Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DSS) is the division that processes and conducts all background investigations for DoS employees and contractors working for DoS. They are one of the few agencies that handle their own investigations in lieu of using the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.