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

The number of Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals cases involving illegal drug use has increased dramatically over the last few years, likely fueled by the increased number of states who have legalized marijuana. In reading the summaries of these appeals, I noted that the applicants who were upfront and honest about

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Security Clearance Process

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) is responsible for running the DoD’s Continuous Vetting (CV) Program. They also enroll non-DoD agency employees into CE. One part of the CE program, run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is called Rap Back, which is short for “Record of Arrest and Prosecution Background.”  Prior

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Security Clearance Denial

In one of the more unusual Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA) cases I have seen in quite a while, this defense contractor had held a security clearance since 2008 until it was revoked in 2021 due to concerns about the state of his mental health after he had

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Background Investigations

There has been a slew of instances where federal background investigators have been indicted for falsifying their work in regard to completing records checks and interviews. The Department of Justice (DOJ) unveiled the latest occurrence in which Christopher Laughlin, a federal background investigator first with the Office of Personnel Management in 2018,

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