- You already have little expectation of privacy at work. Your computer has a sysadmin account for the company, and probably not a sysadmin account for you. Your Springsteen tickets are logged and potentially cached in the printer's memory. At most places, coworkers can see what you're doing in person. So there's no strong reason to expect more crackdown on occasional personal use of work time/resources than there has been in the past.
- There are easy options (especially for people who get an NYT salary) for private work and private computing: doing things at home, using your cell phone (not on the corporate network, no corporate login, and probably too small to see on the cameras), taking a quick break to a nearby cafe, printing your tickets at FedEx, etc. (Many of those are much more anonymous than possible at work, e.g., leave your phone at your desk, email to printandgo@fedex.com from a throwaway account, and pay in coins.)
- The stated rationale—responding to violent attacks—makes sense, is quite worthwhile individually in expectation (even a slight reduction in your chance of getting killed is quite valuable), and if believed implies insufficient staffing to effect a panopticon. There's probably just one security guard downstairs, at most.
- There's other personally beneficial reasons to want cameras at work, e.g., helping you (whichever side you find yourself on!) in harassment claims. In particular I'd actively want low-resolution cameras, enough to identify people but not enough to read standard-sized text on paper or screen, covering every office or conference room with a door that closes.
My own workplace has cameras everywhere other than the bathrooms. We're told this at orientation, and also told that nobody is actively watching them. This seems totally fine to me. If there were security cameras in the bathrooms / privacy rooms / etc., or in my apartment, or in hotel rooms, or anything else, that would be quite different.