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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An Internet service provider is refusing to turn over customer information in response to a subpoena. It's part of a larger tug-of-war over how much access law enforcement should have to customer data. -
The recent revelations about the National Security Agency's Internet surveillance have breathed new life into a basic question: How do you hide online? There are some things you can do to cover your tracks, and privacy advocates are working on even better tools for staying anonymous. But that worries advertisers. -
Employers looking to hire foreign workers must prove they looked for American workers first. But some immigration law firms show employers how to recruit Americans without actually hiring U.S. workers. This kind of "faux recruiting" is common knowledge in the tech industry. -
Tough federal aviation rules and public backlash against drones have raised worries that the U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle industry will be left behind foreign competitors. Developers say the U.S. light drone industry is being overtaken by manufacturers in Israel and Australia. -
Most newer cars have recorders that collect data at the moment of a crash and preserve key information. The data is meant to improve safety, but it's also useful in court. The federal government now wants to make the recorders mandatory on all new cars, but privacy advocates say people should have the option of turning their cars' recorders off. -
Marijuana proponents in Washington state have talked of a "gold rush" as the state transitions to a legal, licensed marijuana industry. But uncertainty about state rules and potential federal intervention have made pursuing opportunities in the industry a high-risk business proposition. -
Unmanned aerial vehicles are starting to show up in American police departments, courtesy of grants from the Department of Homeland Security. But that's caused something of a backlash, and now some state legislatures are considering legal limits on drones to address opponents' privacy concerns.
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Usually, the job of heading the Interior Department goes to a Western politician versed in the struggles over natural resources. So the president's nomination of Sally Jewell, a relatively obscure CEO, has left some of the key players unsure of how to react. -
As the nation ponders how to stop the next mass shooting, the gun rights movement offers one controversial answer: armed civilians. In 2005, one such private citizen tried to stop a mass shooting at a mall in Washington state 鈥� and paid a heavy price. -
For the first time, Google has posted its policies for when it gives up users' information to the government. It's part of a broader company strategy to push for tougher privacy laws.
