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 Industry, through the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), submitted an op-ed providing their thoughts on the changes proposed to the Personnel Vetting Questionnaire (PVQ), the replacement to the Questionnaire for National Security Positions (SF-86) which was open for comments on the Federal Register. Here are some of

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Security Clearance Denial

I recently ran across an interesting and unusual Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals case in which the clearance applicant began communicating via social media with a person who she thought was an actor from a show she likes. The applicant started sending him gifts and money worth thousands of

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Security Clearance Process

One of the first security clearance appeal cases in 2023 for the Department of Energy (DOE) involved issues and concerns under sexual behavior, personal conduct, drug involvement, psychological conditions, and criminal conduct. The DOE contractor was issued a Letter of Interrogatory and his subsequent response did not mitigate the concerns.

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Security Clearance Denial

The Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA) has resumed their pre-COVID-19 pace on security clearance appeals hearings and published summaries of 943 cases that were reviewed. As usual, financial issues outnumbered all other issues combined and resulted in most of the denials. Interestingly, the number of cases involving use of illegal

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