If you need to fetch a remote URL via HTTPS in a Perl script the easiest way I have found is to use HTTP::Tiny. HTTP::Tiny is a core module, and included in all Perl installations.

Sample code:

use HTTP::Tiny;

my $http = HTTP::Tiny->new(verify_SSL => 1, timeout => 5);
my $resp = $http->get("https://www.perturb.org/");
my $body = $resp->{content};

print $body;