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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The George Floyd protests have breathed new life into a movement to end a legal doctrine called "qualified immunity" and meant to limit lawsuits against police.
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Police departments across the country have taken different approaches to protests and violence. Some departments are trained to contain and de-escalate, while others use more aggressive methods.
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American police are caught in the angry middle, literally and politically, as civil unrest rages the U.S. Police share thoughts on the current violence and what future they see for their profession.
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The department settled for $3 million and offered training for officers in how to restrain people in custody more safely in the 2010 case.
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The U.S. hit a grim milestone on Wednesday — 100,000 people have died in this country from COVID-19. We reflect on this moment with three journalists in different regions of the country.
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Officials say the scammers took advantage of vulnerabilities in the system as the state rushed to get unemployment benefits to people quickly.
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Washington state has lost hundreds of millions of dollars to unemployment fraud, the most extreme case so far of the scams thriving nationwide in the uncertain conditions created by the pandemic.
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The pandemic has caused fear, uncertainty and unpredictability, as well as lavished new forms of government aid. It became a perfect environment for scammers.
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As states reopen under new social-distancing rules, the question of whether police should enforce these rules arises. But some say that it might hurt the police's relationship with the public.
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Policing Is Changing In The Age of Social DistancingPolice departments are facing a new reality in the era of coronavirus. As familiar categories of crime fade, officers are being asked to handle unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable new assignments.