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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It's been a year since Washington state voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use. That's meant some big changes along Interstate 5, sometimes called the "Marijuana Highway." Police are phasing out pot-sniffing dogs, but are becoming more vigilant about what some call "green DUIs." -
Current facial recognition technology is still not as powerful as it seems in the movies 鈥� not yet. Some big challenges stand in the way of what you might call "universal facial recognition." But those problems are being solved by all of us, every time we upload photos and label faces on social media. -
The campaign to label foods containing genetically modified organisms is gaining ground in some parts of the U.S. But GMO ingredients are found in some 70 percent of foods we buy in the U.S. Would a ubiquitous GMO label scare off consumers, or would they learn to accept it and buy anyway? -
Document requests by the ACLU of Northern California have produced an inside look at the records of suspicious activity reports gathered by federal authorities. The feds appear to be keeping files on people based on tips that fall far below the threshold of reasonable suspicion. -
Before the Navy Yard shooting, a spate of killings and assaults by mentally ill transients unnerved Seattle residents, prompting questions and discussion. This week's tragedy in Washington, D.C., has added extra energy to that debate. -
On Wednesday, lawyers helping accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan asked to have their roles reduced. They told the judge they think Hasan is purposely trying to lose this trial. -
The online cybercrime underworld orchestrated an elaborate scheme to purchase heroin and have it mailed to a privacy and security journalist's home.
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Several cities have been experimenting with a computer program that predicts where crimes are likely to occur. But the software has raised unanswered questions about whether it's appropriate for police to stop people based on computer modeling. -
Police have scanned millions of license plates around the country and can save the data on vehicle locations for later use. It's a helpful tool for policing, but critics say it's a threat to privacy. -
Want to take a tour of the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor? It's in Richland, Wash., and if you're lucky, your guide will be one of the people who worked here when the place was still new. Physicist Paul Vinther signed on at the plant in June 1950, and he now gives tours.
