Hi Shrout1,
SharePoint Permission is for user. You can give some people read permission and give other people edit permission. So, the permission is distribution by administrator . you can get the permission of a user by develop . Even get these permission of list or
library, it is different for user. So, get the user permission is more better.
You can refer to the following link.
http://www.sharepointben.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=406
Thanks,
Jack