An armed MQ-9 Reaper drone
Friday's ruling by a three-court panel returns the case to the lower court, which had sided with the CIA and dismissed a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Judge Merrick Garland noted that officials from President Barack Obama's administration and the CIA have already acknowledged the government's use of drones.
"Given these official acknowledgments that the United States has participated in drone strikes, it is neither logical nor plausible for the CIA to maintain that it would reveal anything not already in the public domain to say that the agency 'at least has an intelligence interest' in such strikes," Garland wrote.
The FOIA request seeks documents describing the legal basis for drone strikes and civilian casualties, particularly in Pakistan.
Between 2,536 and 3,577 people have been killed by US drones, which are operated by the CIA, in Pakistan since 2004, including between 411 and nearly 884 civilians, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism said in a report in January.
Washington claims its drone strikes target militants, although casualty figures show that Pakistani civilians are often the victims of the non-UN-sanctioned attacks.
The slaughter of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, in US drone strikes has strained relations between Islamabad and Washington, and Pakistani officials have complained to the US administration.
In September 2012, a report by the Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law gave an alarming account of the effect that assassination drone strikes have on ordinary people in Pakistan's tribal areas.
"The number of 'high-level' targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low -- estimated at just 2%," the report noted.
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