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 Process

A recent news story reported that the General Services Administration (GSA) had “terminated” hundreds of employee security clearances. But that terminology can be misleading, as it suggests an adverse action was taken against those employees. In reality, security clearances aren’t “terminated.” When it comes to an individual’s clearance, there are

Read More
Obtaining Security Clearance

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency’s planned move of the eAPP system for submitting the SF-86 (soon to be the Personnel Vetting Questionnaire) from the National Background Investigations Services (NBIS) to their Defense Information System for Security (DISS) Joint Verification System (JVS) has finally occurred after many delays, system glitches,

Read More
Security Clearance Denial

I have run across a few security clearance applicants that were convicted of sexual crimes and, as a part of their sentencing, were required to register as a sexual offender for the rest of their lives. The question that comes up with these individuals is, can they be granted eligibility

Read More
Security Clearance Process

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) complete 95% of all background investigations by the government. They also own the system (DISS) used to process the completion of background investigations, adjudications, and the myriad of other personnel security actions involved in vetting processes. As such, DCSA uses a lot of

Read More