create a permission bit mask in java

This is another option, which is similar to the ordinal solution, except that you can use the | and & operators with this:

 public enum Permissions {
     CanBlah1(1),
     CanBlah2(2),
     CanBlah3(4);

     public int value;

     Permissions(int value) {
         this.value = value;
     }
     public int value() {
      return value;
     }
 }

 public static void main(String[] args) {  
    int userPerm = Permissions.CanBlah1.value() | Permissions.CanBlah2.value();
    // check permssions
    //
    if((userPerm & Permissions.CanBlah1.value()) == Permissions.CanBlah1.value())
    {
        // do something
    }
 }

or:

 public enum Permissions {
         CanBlah1,
         CanBlah2,
         CanBlah3;

         public int value() {
            return 1<<ordinal();
         }
     }

     public static void main(String[] args) {  
        int userPerm = Permissions.CanBlah1.value() | Permissions.CanBlah2.value();
        // check permssions
        //
        if((userPerm & Permissions.CanBlah1.value()) == Permissions.CanBlah1.value())
        {
            // do something
        }
     }