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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Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye, the Senate's senior member, received the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II. In Italy, he personally stormed three German machine gun nests, taking them out but losing his right arm in the process. Inouye died Monday after suffering from a respiratory ailment. -
Last month's ballot initiative that legalized marijuana contained a deal-sweetener for hesitant voters 鈥� a new DUI standard that may make life riskier for regular pot users. Regular users of medical marijuana say they'll be stuck on the wrong side of the law. -
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to make it a little harder for police to read people's old emails. It's something privacy groups and tech companies have wanted for years, but law enforcement groups are less pleased.
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Privacy groups and tech companies have been pushing for more protection for emails and other online personal information for years. They hope the FBI investigation into Gen. David Petraeus' email correspondence with Paula Broadwell will give their efforts new momentum.
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Tens of thousands of people in the New York City area lost their homes to Superstorm Sandy. Many may be in need of temporary housing, so the home-sharing website Airbnb is working to connect people made homeless by Sandy with people willing to provide free housing. -
Climate and ocean scientists are questioning a "rogue" experiment off the Canadian coast. A native village dumped hundreds of tons of iron into the water to cause a bloom of plankton, which would then capture greenhouse gases. -
This November, three states will vote on ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana for recreational use. The legalization effort is getting support from U.S. attorneys and a Republican candidate for Senate. Some of the most intense opposition is coming from earlier legalization pioneers. -
In Colorado, the presidential race is a statistical dead heat. The state went heavily for candidate Barack Obama in 2008 鈥� but the president is now facing fierce headwinds. The race is starting to look more like what's happening nationwide 鈥� a struggle to bring out the party base. -
Punahou School occupies a privileged position in Hawaiian society. Barack Obama attended the school on a scholarship starting in the fifth grade. Punahou's lasting gift to Obama was that the elite environment familiarized him with success. -
Republicans retain hopes of retaking control of the Senate. They lost the majority in 2006, in part because of the razor-close victory of Democratic challenger Jon Tester in Montana. Now, Tester is the incumbent facing a tough challenge of his own against the state's sole member of the House.
