[expert] FTP privileges

[James]

I am impressed by the security settings for Mandrake which seem to hide
and disallow certain read functions.. but I wish to make backups of my
server and I am not allowed direct copy of certain directories to my
remote computer.  

How do I give myself rights (even if only temporarily) to copy, through
ftp, all the files I want to copy for a backup on a different computer?

Thanks.

james