For what its worth, the man page for logger v2.20.1 includes some warning text about this issue:
Valid facility names are: auth, authpriv (for security information of a sensitive nature), cron, daemon, ftp, kern (can't be generated from user process) [...] Nathan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org