It's like the government detected a structural problem in bridges and then decides not to fix it because that could make it harder to destroy other countries' bridges.
The NSA did make changes to the S-boxes used in DES at the last minute, and would not comment on the nature of the changes. Many people speculate this was the introduction of a backdoor. Last year at RSA a speaker from the NSA revealed that the (now 35 year old) changes served two purposes: 1. it actually fixed a weakness they had found, but did not want to disclose the details of. 2. scared the Russians into not trusting the now hardened algorithm and instead relying on older systems that they had attacks against.
You should simply assume that the government has always, always, always been technically capable enough to break into hotel rooms undetected.
Two years before Cody's talk, an unknown entity (assumed by local police to be Mossad), used a third party device to reprogram VingCard hotel door locks in the field as part of the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai.