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 Denial

A DoD contractor who had a security clearance for ten years was caught lying on his SF-86 when he was asked to fill out a new application in order to enroll him in Continuous Evaluation (CE). A review of the SF-86 is done to determine if any issues are present, and if

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Background Investigations

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) released a statement last week on the indictment of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) federal employee, Yifei Chu, for falsifying his clearance application. He did not provide the required information regarding his Taiwanese military contacts and he had kept dual citizenship with

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Background Investigations

The National Background Investigation Services is slowly being pushed out to agencies across the federal government. The initial rollout experienced various glitches that had to be addressed by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), and many agencies were wary at first of using the system due to frequent outages and other

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Security Clearance Denial

According to psychologists, a gambling disorder involves repeated, problem gambling behavior. The behavior leads to problems for the individual, families, and society. People with a gambling disorder have trouble controlling their gambling and will continue even when it causes significant problems with relationships and finances. A recent Department of Energy Office

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