Martin Kaste
Martin Kaste is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk. He covers law enforcement and privacy. He has been focused on police and use of force since before the 2014 protests in Ferguson, and that coverage led to the creation of NPR's Criminal Justice Collaborative.
In addition to criminal justice reporting, Kaste has contributed to NPR News coverage of major world events, including the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2011 uprising in Libya.
Kaste has reported on the government's warrant-less wiretapping practices as well as the data collection and analysis that go on behind the scenes in social media and other new media. His privacy reporting was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2012 United States v. Jones ruling concerning GPS tracking.
Before moving to the West Coast, Kaste spent five years as NPR's reporter in South America. He covered the drug wars in Colombia, the financial meltdown in Argentina, the rise of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, and the fall of Haiti's president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Throughout this assignment, Kaste covered the overthrow of five presidents in five years.
Prior to joining NPR in 2000, Kaste was a political reporter for Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul for seven years.
Kaste is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
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Chicago was shaken by the shooting death of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega last Saturday. Nationally, the number of children shot has jumped during the pandemic. -
Specific homeless camps may fuel property crime, but one researcher says on average, camps do not appear to increase city-wide crime rates. -
Stock markets around the world tumbled on concerns about the new variant. While it's too soon to tell exactly how the variant functions, virologists are rushing to learn more. -
Critics of the movement to reduce cash bail cite the $1000 cash bail paid by Darrell E. Brooks, Jr., weeks before he allegedly plowed his SUV through the Waukesha Christmas parade -
A wide array of apps will display your vaccination status, but privacy experts say they don't all do the same thing. Some require more personal data, and leading brand CLEAR uses facial recognition -
The failed ballot measure proposed a new Department of Public Safety that would emphasize a public health approach to policing. -
Almost a year after identity thieves made off with tens of billions of dollars in COVID-19 unemployment relief, the system remains vulnerable. And scammers are coming to light now during tax time.
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As many states tighten pandemic public health rules again, what happens if you don't comply? We examine the hesitancy to enforce orders, especially where there's skepticism about COVID-19 rules.
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"Agents are already worrying about guns and knives and bombs," a former Secret Service agent says. "Now they have to worry about COVID-19." -
When a coronavirus-infected VIP such as the president chooses to travel, it increases Secret Service agents' risk of contracting the virus. And agents have little choice in the matter.
