The 1979 amnesty marked the beginning of the end of military dictatorship in Brazil. It has since been both a help and a hindrance to the transition to democracy and the implementation of mechanisms of transitional justice. Two sections of the first Article of the proposed amnesty were especially controversial. One section explicitly excluded individuals convicted of specified national security crimes and the other implicitly included state agents complicit in torture. This article looks at the efforts by legislators to alter the amnesty bill on either or both of these points. Although unsuccessful, the strategies behind and the reactions to their efforts add to our historical understanding of accountability work and the persistent problem of impunity in Brazil.