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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After Hurricane Andrew decimated parts of south Florida in 1992, state officials mandated sweeping building code revisions for new construction. Those changes continue to limit damage from storms now.
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AI can improve police "professionalism" by monitoring officers' body camera footage, according to the first independent study on the topic. Police aren’t so sure the benefits are worth the cost.
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Polymer80 sold component kits that are easily assembled into working handguns that couldn't be traced. Regulatory pressure and lawsuits appear to have shut it down — but the Supreme Court may still rescue the business.
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Las Vegas police are refusing to comply with the NFL’s new plan to use facial recognition technology for stadium employees during games.
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Some people regard these protests as a kind of test for Chicago police, which has been under pressure in recent years to reform. How did they do on their first full day of the convention?
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Law enforcement in Chicago trained for worst-case scenarios at the DNC. Three thousand officers trained on mass-arrests, and a court has been revived to rapidly process up to 90 people at a time.
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Newly released body camera footage shows the confusion among police at the Pennsylvania rally where a shooter attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
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Republicans are attacking Kamala Harris for being soft on crime. But her record as a district attorney and California attorney general isn't so simple.
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Illegal "sideshows," also known as "street takeovers," have spread since the pandemic. When police try to break them up, they often face defiant crowds
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More postal workers continue to be robbed on the job despite a number of new safety measures. The mail carriers’ union has been holding rallies in recent months calling for stronger protections.