NYPD disbanding Muslim spying unit

Bill Stanton and Eric Adams on the undercover program being dropped

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," April 16, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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O'REILLY: "Personal Story" segment tonight, spying on certain Muslims. Since an attack on 9/11 the NYPD has been sending undercovered detectives into Muslim areas conducting surveillance. That's been controversial because mosques have been involved. Now with a new mayor in New York City the very liberal Bill de Blasio and new police commissioner, Bill Bratton, the undercover program has been discontinued. With us Bill Stanton former NYPD officer and Eric Adams also former NYPD, now the Brooklyn Borough president. So, you applaud this action, Mr. Adams, why?

ERIC ADAMS (D) BROOKLYN NY BOROUGH PRESIDENT: Right. And I think as you stated, we may say Bill de Blasio may be a liberal, Bill Bratton is not.

O'REILLY: No, he is not.

ADAMS: Bill Bratton is extremely wise about police issues. He believes there has to be intelligence -- intelligent about our intelligence gathering apparatus. And he has not disbanded the intelligence. He disbanded the methods that we use that came up with zero results on leads or stopping any terrorist act.

O'REILLY: You know, but Ray Kelly the former police commissioner who did a very good job I think you would agree with that, right?

ADAMS: Um-huh.

O'REILLY: OK. He disagrees with you. He says we got a lot of intel by the undercover guys in there, but we are not going to tell you what we got, where we got and how we got it. Because it puts them in danger and I understand that. So, there is a difference of opinion and you come down on the other side. You think this is a good program?

BILL STANTON, FORMER NYPD OFFICER: Absolutely. Monitoring. What is monitoring? Cop on the beat monitors everything. You have gangs. Do we not monitor gangs? Do we not monitor organized crime?

O'REILLY: But that's a different thing, though. Gangs are inherently criminal. Now we are going into a religious institution some of the police went into mosques. So, it's the difference.

STANTON: Yeah, but Bill, you look at where with documented proof where you see in Boston where were they congregating, the brothers? They went to a mosque. Now, they did get radicalized online and outside of the country. But it just seems that influence of information go through, and out the other side of mosques.

O'REILLY: All right, now. Mr. Adams, here's the one that where I disagree with you. I wouldn't have discontinued the program. However, I would have limited it. Because, you know, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind cleric, who is - the first World Trade Center attack, he preached out of a mosque. He did all his works out of mosques. I mean you've got to - if you have a radical cleric and you have a radical crew in a certain mosque, you've got to check them out. You have to.

ADAMS: Think about it for a moment. Many of mass murderers go to churches. Do we go out to every church? You can .

O'REILLY: No, no, no. Not every church.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: That probable cause.

ADAMS: That's the key. If that's what Eric Holder is saying, he's saying listen, if we are going to map communities. Let's do it probable cause.

O'REILLY: And in order to get probable cause you have to have surveillance.

ADAMS: No, but what you can't do the most important thing in this country is our right to religious freedom.

O'REILLY: But how does that infringe on anybody's right? You don't know who the undercover is. He is looking and facing Mecca like everybody else.

ADAMS: That's a good question - that's a good question.

O'REILLY: You going to go to a catholic church or .

ADAMS: Let's go to every .

(CROSSTALK)

ADAMS: No, no, no. That's what you want to call support. That's good to have - Catholic Church .

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: No, no, but there's no problem. The Catholics aren't attacking America.

ADAMS: No, wait a minute. No, it's a let's not define terrorism merely by people who blow up a building. Terrorism is people who create crime and havoc in our community. That's terrorism to that community.

BRATTON: No, no. You are trying to be .

O'REILLY: Organized terrorism is coming .

ADAMS: In America, one life - no, that's right. And it's coming right now at this point in history from jihadists.

ADAMS: No, no. Terrorists is - I'm just saying .

O'REILLY: It's coming from jihadists.

ADAMS: I just saw a 13-year-old shot in my community. That's terrorism to that community.

O'REILLY: You know what I'm talking about.

ADAMS: No, no, you are trying to be .

O'REILLY: Organized terrorism is coming from.

ADAMS: In America one life - no, organized terrorism.

O'REILLY: Coming from predominantly one sector.

ADAMS: And if we had a methodology that was used by the commissioner that he testified during his deposition that he had zero amount of evidence that indicated -- that's what he said.

O'REILLY: This is what Bratton said.

ADAMS: No, this is what Commissioner Kelly was saying.

O'REILLY: Kelly was for this program!

BRATTON: Kelly was .

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Let me give you the last word, Mister. Go.

BRATTON: Kelly was for this program. He was one of the most vanguard police commissioners to protect us from terrorism. When we saw that white smoke, all national intelligence, local intelligence said how did we let this happen? We can't let it happen again, we need to monitor.

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