Former State Department official Stephen Kim announced today he will plead guilty to leaking classified information to Fox News journalist James Rosen and will serve 13 months in jail.

The case sparked controversy last year when it was revealed the Justice Department named Rosen a “co-conspirator” in court documents for essentially doing his job as a journalist. But a largely ignored ruling in Kim’s case may have far broader impact on how sources interact with journalists in the future.

In Espionage Act cases involving sources or whistleblowers, defendants naturally want to explain to a judge or jury that the information they may have given to journalists (and the American public) didn’t harm US national security. The bar for this was already too low; in the past, the government didn't have to show actual harm, but at least they had to show the information could potentially harm national security. The judge in Kim’s case ruled the government didn’t even need to do that.

As secrecy expert Steven Aftergood reported at the time: