Excerpt:
The NYPD and CIA sent undercover agents to watch mosques, bookstores and cafés in Muslim neighborhoods to sniff out terror plots - a tactic cops say helped them thwart seven planned attacks.
The Daily News largely confirmed the details of an Associated Press report revealing the existence of what it called the NYPD's Demographic Unit, which uses "mosque crawlers" to gather information.
Critics charge the operation to gather intel on the city's imams, cabbies and street-meat sellers blurs the line between foreign and domestic spying and stretches legal limits on racial profiling.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne blasted the AP story, saying it was "marked by outright fiction," and insisting there's no such thing as "mosque crawlers."