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.

Background Investigations

As many on this site have said for security clearance applicants, it is better to tell all then try to hide stuff and hope no one finds out. Many times, the information you are trying to hide can be mitigated, but the fact that you lied about it can’t. That

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Obtaining Security Clearance

It is quite extraordinary to think someone who was charged with murdercan get a security clearance, but occasionally I run across an appealscase involving just that. In this particular case, the applicant, whois now 33 years old, was charged with murder and concealing the deathof another when she was 20

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Security Clearance Denial

Based on historical Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA) cases, it would be a good bet that one of the first cases for this year involved financial issues. The DoD Central Adjudication Facility (CAF) issued this applicant a Statement of Reasons (SOR) regarding her $212,000 in delinquent student loans

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Security Clearance Denial

All clearance holders receive an initial security briefing thatincludes going over the proper handling and storage of classifieddocuments. This is a hot topic lately with the discovery of classifieddocuments at high level current and former political figures. I ranacross a case study from 2021 about a former U.S. Air Forcecontractor,

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