Why is it that when I try to spy on someone in protection (before turn 100) I get an error code, however, there is such a spy op already posted?

The spy op shows the country having played "80" turns.

How do you spy on a country in protection?

You can't, the op is probably uploaded by the person who the country belongs to.

No, it isn't actually...

Well, anything is possible. Maybe the player in Alliance A is now playing for the other side and forgot to change their API key and did a self-op?

http://wiki.earthempires.com/index.php/Protection

heh could be i guess; or clicked some incorrect boxes in the spyop upload

Also obligatory 'cheater' comment for having spy ops of countries still under protection.

hehe... well, I could post the name of the boxcar account who uploaded the op, but I figure if they are playing for the other side now and dumb enough to have not updated their API key... why give them notice?