"You want to have restrictions [on police terrorism searches]," Bloomberg explained. "You want to have the police to have the burden of being very careful and never discriminating."

"If you think that everybody with blue eyes is a terrorist, you can't just stop everybody with blue eyes," he added. "Terrorists come in all sizes and shapes and forms."

When Gambling reminded Bloomberg that "a higher percentage of them come from a certain section of the world," Bloomberg acknowledged: "That is true."

"But John," the mayor shot back, "the essence of our freedom is that you are presumed innocent - you're innocent until proven guilty. The presumption of innocence is the fundamental [value] of our society. And you just can't go and say everybody who has blue eyes - my example - is a terrorist just because most terrorists that you've caught have blue eyes."

Bloomberg acknowledged that his profiling ban would make it easier for terrorists to succeed in their next attack, but still insisted the practice was "unreasonable."

"It is just not a reasonable, not a rational - nothing that we want in our society," he maintained. "That does make it more difficult for the police, yes. But it's been more difficult for 235 years and we've kept the democracy and that's the challenge that we have to meet."

Wrapping up on the topic, Bloomberg caught himself profiling terrorists by sex - then quickly amended his comments, telling WABC:

"If you had no restrictions [on police searches], number one, you'd give up all our freedoms, and number two, I don't know that you'd necessarily do any better at catching the bad guys - or that they are guys."

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