The law's final text does not in fact allow the police to stop and investigate the immigration status of just anyone out buying ice cream for their children.
As with any complex law, however, the text gets the layman only so far.
In his new book, Scalia argues interpreting laws and the Constitution properly requires a strict approach to look at the actual text of the law itself.
But last month, in a 7-to-2 decision, the Supreme Court agreed with Janet Reno's Justice Department that there was nothing in the text of the law that made it okay to lie without embellishment.
Several drafts have circulated and a text of the final law was not immediately available.
"The court pays more attention now to the text" of the law and the Constitution, he said, and less to legislative history, congressional floor debates and the views of foreign governments.
In 2011, mobile companies received a staggering 1.3 million law enforcement requests for data, including text messages and location information.
Rahman, who worked at the Tower Hamlet Law Centre, told her sister by text to remove her "dead body from my flat".
BBC: Solicitor Mohammed Rahman guilty of beating wife to death
However, we are required by law to display the following notice: Text STOP to 55333 to initiate an opt-out command, or HELP to the same number if you require assistance.
But it may have less serious implications for the collective-bargaining law than when courts nullify laws because of their text.
"My daughter helped me to pick out a shirt for my son-in-law, whilst shopping, all through the power of text, " she said.
What's more likely to occur, experts say, is a mild reform, such as a law that requires legislators to attach their names to earmarked projects in the text of appropriations bills.
To be sure, U.S. law-enforcement officials say it isn't clear whether knowing the content of the text messages would have changed what the FBI learned in 2011 about Mr. Tsarnaev's turn toward radicalization.
The law must now be approved by the Senate, which voted for a previous version of the text last December.
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