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 has worked as a contractor background investigator, a government industrial and personnel security specialist, and as a national security and public trust background investigation adjudicator.

Security Clearance Denial

There was a lot of buzz a few years ago when the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Justice cracked down on contractor background investigators who were falsifying reports of investigation and collecting payments for work that was not done. A recent Department of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA)

Read More
Security Clearance Process

When the Defense Counterintelligence Agency (DCSA) first introduced their new National Background Investigation Services (NBIS) system a few years ago, it was still going through a lot of changes to work out the bugs that caused almost daily system outages. This caused a lot of frustration with eAPP applicants and

Read More
Security Clearance Denial

A security clearance applicant working for a DoD contractor on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles contract was recently denied eligibility by the DoD Central Adjudications Services based on security concerns regarding the applicant’s behavior that resulted in an “Other Than Honorable” discharge from the U.S. Naval Academy. He subsequently appealed to

Read More
Polygraph

By now, you would think security clearance applicants would know to be up front and honest about marijuana use, seeing as how ODNI and OPM have put out policy guidance stating prior use is not an automatic disqualifier. Yet, we still see an abundance of appeal cases where the applicant

Read More