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

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency now conducts 95% of the background investigations for the Federal Government using a mix of federal employee investigators and contractor companies who are designated investigative service providers. The ratio of federal investigators to contractor investigators stands is hard to distinguish because DCSA ramped up

Read More
Security Clearance Denial

Living within one’s means is one of many ways to keep yourself out of a financial mess. When money gets tight you shouldn’t charge mortgage and car lease payments to credit cards, and you definitely shouldn’t take vacations to the Caribbean when you have $39,000 in delinquent debt. A defense

Read More
Security Clearance Denial

The Department of Energy (DOE) Appeals Board has published the results of twenty-four security clearance appeals so far this year and among them were fifteen cases (62%) involving alcohol consumption issues. That is an astonishingly high percentage of total cases considering the Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA) only

Read More
Career Advice

An interesting observation was made by National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director William Evanina after three months of Intelligence Community (IC) employees working from home where they have not had access to classified national security information; a security clearance may not be needed for all positions. Last week in an address to

Read More