how can I avoid custom access permissions when copying from time machine I have recently done a clean install of El Capitan, having backed up files on Time Machine.  However, there is something wrong with the time machine backup: when I enter time machine it won't list the old backup, only the one that I did after the clean install.  (I think there's a problem with the drive I'm using.)  However, the files are all there, so I can copy them to my hard drive using the cp command in the terminal.

However, if I try


  cp -r /Volumes/TimeMachine/.../Documents/* Documents


all the files appear with today's time stamp, which is not very helpful.

If on the other hand I enter


  cp -pr /Volumes/TimeMachine/.../Documents/* Documents


I get the correct time stamps, but I also get the level of protection that Time Machine has - which is to say I can't edit anything I copied! 

Does anyone know whether there's a way to preserve time stamps, but not this extreme level of protection? 

Thanks
A way to copy files which can deal with interruptions etc, that is it will not copy something that has not changed is to use rsync

OS X comes with an old version and it is best to get a newer one from macports, homebrew etc. This can copy ACLs and there is a bug in the OS X one (that is in one of my other answers her or SU or SO) 

The simple copy is (the directory Documents to the current directory)

rsync -rtlA /Volumes/TimeMachine/.../Documents .


-a does several other parameters (-rlptgoD ) -A copies the ACLs
-r recurses into directories, -t preservers modification times, -l copies symlinks as simlinks