The agents who run the real Con Air and track fugitives from covert surveillance planes belong to an agency that once took the national census and paid the courthouse janitors. This episode follows the United States Marshals Service from the Judiciary Act of 1789, when George Washington appointed the first 13 marshals, through more than a century in which they were paid by the fee, appointed through patronage, and free to swear in a posse of local citizens.

The frontier made them legends, with Bass Reeves credited with arresting over 3,000 felons and Virgil Earp at the O.K. Corral in 1881. The same duty to carry out court orders also had them enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and suppressing the Pullman strike in 1894. The civil rights era forced a centralized, modern service, officially established in 1969, and the episode weighs its tactical power and secrecy against Ruby Ridge, corruption, and discrimination lawsuits.

• Until 1870 marshals took the census every 10 years, and until 1896 they were paid a fee for each paper served or arrest made.
• In September 1962, President John F. Kennedy ordered 127 marshals to accompany James Meredith at the University of Mississippi amid violent riots.
• In Operation Flagship in December of 1985, over a hundred fugitives were arrested after being mailed a fake offer of free Washington Redskins tickets.
• Surveillance planes registered to a front company with a UPS store mailbox in Spring, Texas carry dirt boxes that mimic cell towers to locate a fugitive’s phone.
• A 1998 jury found the service a racially hostile environment in its promotion practices, and in September 2023 the agency settled a $15 million class action lawsuit.