Two questions: spies&pirates

[SMArty]

Number 1: is their ANY other method of getting rid of spies than getting oppressonmeter to maximum? Right now on hard difficulty i'm killing 1-2 spies in a single turn...
Number 2: the most common reason for unrest is "pirates". Who are they and how should i fight them?

Or maybe where i can find something on these questions pls...

[Stormhound]

1) You can also keep some defensive spies (just don't assign them against anyone).
2) You fight them by having ships in systems...starships or system ships, it doesn't matter which. It's one good reason to produce system ships, though. You can't actually battle pirates, however.