Use LWP::Simple and getstore which saves directly to a file.

Untested code below...

use strict;

use LWP::Simple;

my $url  = 'https://192.168.1.1/cgi-bin/get-sae-log.cgi?host=thingy&da
+te=20090703';
my $file = 'document.bzip2';

my $rc = getstore($url, $file);

if (is_success($rc)) {
   "Success - saved [$url] to [$file]\n";
} else {
   "Error - [$rc] error in getting [$url]\n";
}
[download]