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.

Obtaining Security Clearance

Most of the case examples highlighted on this site are clearance denials upheld by the Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA). Here is a good example of a case where the applicant had issues concerning recent cocaine and then lying about it, but was able to mitigate the issues and be

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Security Clearance Process

Charlie Phalen, Director of the National Background Investigation Bureau (NBIB), provided security professionals and industry leaders attending the Intelligence & National Security Alliance Summit with updates to current security clearance and background investigation processing timelines. According to a post by Federal News Radio, among the various topics covered were: E-Application

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Security Clearance Process

The Department of State (DS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently released their findings on DS security clearance processes and discovered that agency officials used blanket estimates in reporting timeliness data to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) instead of the actual time. The DS is one of

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Security Clearance Denial

Time and time again I run across background investigation applications where the applicant listed criminal charges that are contradicted by the FBI criminal history check or police report. This is a serious mistake! It seems, either consciously or unconsciously, applicants try to downplay the seriousness of the reason(s) for the

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