Emmaus,PA- from www.mcall.com – Lehigh County investigators are familiar with the pornographic website where nude or semi-nude pictures of local high school girls have been posted because this is the second time they have dealt with it, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin [pictured] said Friday.

During the first investigation into the website, which happened in the past year, Lehigh County authorities managed to identify the host server and have it take down the site, Martin said.

Martin said both investigations began with complaints from students and parents.

The website recently changed host servers and was up and running in August. Weeks later, local police began receiving calls that the site and images were back, he said.

Emmaus police confirmed last week that they, along with the district attorney’s office and Attorney General’s office, are investigating possible images of current or former Emmaus high school students on the site. Students at Parkland High School are also part of the police investigation, officials said Friday.

Nicole McGalla, director of community relations for Parkland School District, said the superintendent was informed this week by police that some current or former Parkland students may appear on the site. She said the district hasn’t identified the students in the images.

She said the superintendent was also told students in other area school districts may be on the site.

Authorities have said it appears students willingly took photographs of themselves and then shared them with boyfriends or someone else and the images eventually ended up on the website.

“Once they are there, they are there forever,” Martin said.

Martin said during the first investigation into the site, the creator of the site was never identified and no charges were ever filed. He said county investigators did manage to get the site taken down, at least for some time.

“That’s the problem – we can get the server to take them down, but they will just find another one,” he said.

Authorities have confirmed that the site, which began in 2006, is an image and message board that features pornographic and non-pornographic images. Images are organized by category, some vividly obscene and others not as much, and people can comment on the images and even request nude images of current or former classmates. One category is listed “stolen pics.”

The site’s rules state that images of underage pornography are not allowed and neither is identifying the person in the images, but it has come under fire before.

The site was also shut down in 2008 for similar allegations. Martin said some images of the local students would be considered child pornography, while others are not.

He said it is typical of sites like that to move around when they are discovered. He said the state police’s Computer Crime Task Force and his office’s Computer Crimes Task Force are constantly monitoring for similar sites and have been successful in shutting them down before.

The website reappeared on Aug. 1, with the administrator of the site welcoming back viewers. In messages in August and September, the administrator repeatedly asks viewers to promote the site.

“Tell your friends, siblings, pets, parents (no, not really) and spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, wherever!,” the message reads.

By Friday afternoon, the site appeared to have been shut down, but it was unclear if that was a result of the investigation or if the site was just having technical issues.