Re: "paint encrypted mobile phone services as something used exclusively by criminals"
Well, they can both be used to commit a crime. A car lets a criminal get to or away from a crime scene a lot faster or you can kill someone with it. For the same reason, encryption can be used to hide information about your crime. Both can be put to nefarious use. They are also similar because both are heavily used by others for entirely legitimate purposes.
The important detail is whether the operators of the encrypted communication company knew their products were being sold to criminals. The wording there is important. It's not enough that the equipment was being used by criminals; car companies know that criminals will use cars and ISPs know that people will send malicious packets. The business has to know that they're interacting with a criminal for them to share culpability. Again, the wording is important. If they went to strange steps not to know their customers because they knew they would be criminals, then they knew and the circling around doesn't help them. If they actually thought the products were being used by normal businesses which would have a reason to want secure communications, they aren't culpable. This is the reason the trials of these companies have to be based on specific evidence from each company. There have been many companies deliberately aiding criminals and this might be one of them, but that has to be proven and just saying "they provide useful stuff that criminals used" isn't enough.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
