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

I have noticed a common thread among many of the case summaries written by Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals (DOHA) judges when explaining the board’s rationale for upholding the initial denial or revocation of an applicant’s eligibility for a security clearance. Before I get to that, here is a

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Security Clearance Process

During a recent Defense Security Service webinar DoD policy experts acknowledged the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB) has made little or no progress to clear the current background investigation backlog inherited from OPM’s Federal Investigative Services. New approaches called “Lines of Effort (LoE)” are in the works.  Here is a

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Security Clearance Denial

The fine print in Privacy Act notices outline the routine uses for federal agencies that collect information from individuals. In the case of background investigations, when you sign the release form you are consenting to allow that agency to disclose the investigative materials to other federal agencies for specific uses.

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Security Clearance Jobs

Most of the questions, comments, and discussions about security clearance processes revolve around DoD and Intelligence Community agencies. There are, however, many other Federal Government agencies that also have a significant number of positions that require a security clearance. One of these, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

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