I would say a more accurate distinction is breaking into someone's home vs trying to break into a military base. In the first case you're likely to get arrested, in the second they'll probably shoot first and ask questions later
Picking someone else's door lock is legal if they ask you to.
Picking someone else's lock, if it's not actually in a door and isn't protecting anything, is not illegal, even if they don't ask you to or give permission. You're just picking up a lock and fiddling with it, there's no trespass.
Picking someone else's door lock to burgle their home is illegal.
Handing someone a lockpick so that they can burgle a home for you is illegal.
It's like as if Manning copied the lock at the military base and Assange agreed to see if he can figure out how to pick the copy, but failed (or never even tried, we don't know).
