Author Archive

Marko Hakamaa

Marko Hakamaa served in various military police positions with the United States Army worldwide for 22 years before retiring in 2006 as a Master Sergeant. Afterwards, he transitioned into the civilian workforce as a contractor background investigator for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) before entering civil service as a Security Specialist in 2009.

Security Clearance Process

The Defense Security Service (DSS) published a job aid for security professionals and Facility Security Officers (FSO) to assist military and DoD civilian personnel in understanding what is in the Statement of Reasons (SOR) package and how to respond to a Letter of Intent (LOI) to deny eligibility for a

Read More
Security Clearance Denial

The Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA) released their first batch of decisions for security clearance and public trust position denial appeals for 2019. Through the end of February, DOHA heard 83 appeals and as in previous years, financial issues continue to outpace all others followed by personal conduct,

Read More
Security Clearance Process

The Department of Defense (DoD) is rolling out a new pilot program that will monitor current DoD security clearance holder online activity and pair that data up with other known data points in order to develop algorithms that determine normal patterns of user behavior. This consolidated data will then enable

Read More
Adjudication

The number of background investigations with psychological or mental health issues continue to rise and DoD personnel security adjudicators are having to collaborate with mental health professionals to evaluate the information. DoD’s Consolidated Adjudication Facility (DoD CAF) has staff psychologists available to consult with adjudicators and help review assessments completed

Read More